Library
Discover romance stories by category.
Werewolf
The Alpha's Hidden Luna
Rejected by her mate, she disappears for five years and returns with a secret that can destroy the Alpha king.
Billionaire
Married to the Cold Billionaire
She signed a contract marriage, but the man who never loved anyone started breaking every rule for her.
Billionaire
Chasing His Pregnant Love
I tricked my billionaire husband into signing divorce papers—he had no idea. `Exam documents,` I lied. His ex-wife smirked. `Boring paperwork. Don't bother reading it.` He signed without a glance. Three years. I thought he'd learn to love me. But ever since she came back, my dinners went cold, my bed stayed empty, and he ran to her with every call. Then I found out I was pregnant. That same day, at the hospital, I saw him holding her hand—asking about her baby. She was pregnant too. But only one of us mattered to him. I'm done being her stand-in. I packed one suitcase and vanished. When he finally read those papers, he turned the city upside down searching for me. Too late. His wife is already a ghost—carrying his twins somewhere he'll never find.
Werewolf
My Baby and I Died in Labor While He Celebrated Hers
36 weeks pregnant, I was thrown into the dungeon by my own husband. When my water broke, I desperately reached out through the mate bond, calling for him—only to discover that he had severed it with his own hands. They lashed my swollen belly with leather whips. They injected wolfsbane into my veins. And when my baby's head began to crown, they shoved her back inside me. All because his sister-in-law Genevieve was also in labor today—and her child had to be born as the pack's heir. I crawled out of that dungeon, drenched in my own blood, only to find him blocking the doorway. I knelt at his feet, clutching at his trousers, begging. `The baby is innocent. Please... just let me deliver her...` He kicked me away in disgust. `Wait until Genevieve is done.` Later, fireworks lit up the sky. The entire pack celebrated the birth of Genevieve's heir. I was dumped in a water cell, watching my blood slowly turn the ice-cold water crimson, feeling my daughter grow still inside me. Only after he'd gazed adoringly at the newborn in Genevieve's arms did he finally remember me. He sent someone to fetch me from the dungeon. But his servant returned white-faced, voice trembling: `Alpha! The Luna... she and the baby... they're both dead!`
Campus
The Rhythm of My Desire
Keith Harrison is a failing student with nothing to lose, but his life takes a carnal turn when he catches his ice-queen professor, Vivian Kyle, in a moment of undeniable vulnerability. What begins as a scandalous accident on a ladder spiraling into a face-sitting encounter soon unearths a darker reality. Behind the prestigious walls of the academy, Vivian and the powerful president are running a twisted operation that involves more than just textbooks; they are harvesting something far more intimate. Now, Keith is a blackmailer with a massive advantage and an even larger appetite. From the high-stakes thrill of a faculty room blowjob to the intoxicating surrender of the school's most elegant ballet instructor, Keith is determined to claim every perk the elite have to offer. In this game of lust and leverage, the curves are dangerous, the secrets are bloody, and the pleasure is absolute.
Werewolf
My Bond with Two Mates
Three years ago, the Moon Goddess led Eileen to me at the Solstice Festival. Her scent hit me like blooming irises, and my wolf told me she was my fated mate. But for three years, our connection faltered; she could never endure the raw intensity of an Alpha's heat. Everything changed the night her best friend, Veronica, arrived at our door. Veronica was everything Eileen wasn't—vibrant, hungry, and desperate to fill the void of a broken bond. When I heard her whisper my name in the dark, I braced for the agony of a betrayed mate bond, but the pain never came. Instead, Eileen made a shocking proposal: "Let Veronica teach me. Let the three of us stay together." Now, I navigate a life of ancient legends and desires, sharing one bed with two mates in a divine Twin Bond.
Historical
Pride and Prejudice
She rejected the richest man in the room. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Historical
Sense and Sensibility
Love, pride, secrets, and second chances collide in a timeless emotional drama. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Historical
Emma
Love, pride, secrets, and second chances collide in a timeless emotional drama. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Historical
Persuasion
Love, pride, secrets, and second chances collide in a timeless emotional drama. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Historical
Mansfield Park
Love, pride, secrets, and second chances collide in a timeless emotional drama. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Historical
Northanger Abbey
A lonely heart enters a shadowed world of obsession, secrets, and desire. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Historical
Jane Eyre
An orphan bride. A dark mansion. A master with a secret. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Dark Romance
Wuthering Heights
He came back rich, cruel, and obsessed. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Historical
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Love, pride, secrets, and second chances collide in a timeless emotional drama. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Paranormal
Agnes Grey
Love, pride, secrets, and second chances collide in a timeless emotional drama. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Women's Fiction
Little Women
Love, pride, secrets, and second chances collide in a timeless emotional drama. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Women's Fiction
Good Wives
Love, pride, secrets, and second chances collide in a timeless emotional drama. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Women's Fiction
An Old-Fashioned Girl
She was underestimated by everyone, until she found the courage to choose herself. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Women's Fiction
Rose in Bloom
She was underestimated by everyone, until she found the courage to choose herself. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Women's Fiction
Anne of Green Gables
She was underestimated by everyone, until she found the courage to choose herself. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Women's Fiction
Anne of Avonlea
She was underestimated by everyone, until she found the courage to choose herself. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Historical
Anne of the Island
Love, pride, secrets, and second chances collide in a timeless emotional drama. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Women's Fiction
Anne's House of Dreams
Love, pride, secrets, and second chances collide in a timeless emotional drama. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Women's Fiction
The Blue Castle
At 29, she finally chose herself. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Women's Fiction
Emily of New Moon
She was underestimated by everyone, until she found the courage to choose herself. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Historical
The Age of Innocence
He married one woman, but wanted another. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Mystery & Suspense
The House of Mirth
She was born to marry rich, until society destroyed her. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Paranormal
The Custom of the Country
She married up, then wanted more. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Historical
Summer
Love, pride, secrets, and second chances collide in a timeless emotional drama. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Historical
Ethan Frome
Love, pride, secrets, and second chances collide in a timeless emotional drama. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Historical
North and South
The factory king and the woman who defied him. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Women's Fiction
Wives and Daughters
Love, pride, secrets, and second chances collide in a timeless emotional drama. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Women's Fiction
Cranford
Love, pride, secrets, and second chances collide in a timeless emotional drama. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Women's Fiction
Ruth
Love, pride, secrets, and second chances collide in a timeless emotional drama. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Paranormal
Middlemarch
In a glittering society built on status, one woman risks everything for a different life. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Mystery & Suspense
The Mill on the Floss
Love, pride, secrets, and second chances collide in a timeless emotional drama. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Historical
A Room with a View
Love, pride, secrets, and second chances collide in a timeless emotional drama. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Women's Fiction
Howards End
In a glittering society built on status, one woman risks everything for a different life. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Women's Fiction
The Enchanted April
Four unhappy women escaped to Italy. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Historical
The Pastor's Wife
In a glittering society built on status, one woman risks everything for a different life. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Women's Fiction
Elizabeth and Her German Garden
She was underestimated by everyone, until she found the courage to choose herself. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Historical
The Shuttle
In a glittering society built on status, one woman risks everything for a different life. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Women's Fiction
A Little Princess
She was underestimated by everyone, until she found the courage to choose herself. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Women's Fiction
The Secret Garden
She was underestimated by everyone, until she found the courage to choose herself. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Historical
Daddy-Long-Legs
Love, pride, secrets, and second chances collide in a timeless emotional drama. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Women's Fiction
Dear Enemy
Love, pride, secrets, and second chances collide in a timeless emotional drama. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Women's Fiction
Pollyanna
She was underestimated by everyone, until she found the courage to choose herself. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Paranormal
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
She was underestimated by everyone, until she found the courage to choose herself. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Mystery & Suspense
The Circular Staircase
A secretive house, a dangerous clue, and a truth no one wants exposed. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Mystery & Suspense
The Man in Lower Ten
A secretive house, a dangerous clue, and a truth no one wants exposed. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Mystery & Suspense
The Bat
A secretive house, a dangerous clue, and a truth no one wants exposed. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Mystery & Suspense
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
A secretive house, a dangerous clue, and a truth no one wants exposed. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Mystery & Suspense
The Secret Adversary
A secretive house, a dangerous clue, and a truth no one wants exposed. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Mystery & Suspense
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Everyone lied. One murder changed everything. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Women's Fiction
Daniel Deronda
In a glittering society built on status, one woman risks everything for a different life. A classic public-domain story presented for modern NovelLuma readers who love emotional tension, secrets, society drama, mystery, and unforgettable heroines.
Historical
The Treasure of Heaven
London,--and a night in June. London, swart and grim, semi-shrouded in a warm close mist of mingled human breath and acrid vapour steaming up from the clammy crowded streets,--London, with a million twinkling lights gleaming sharp upon its native blackness, and looking, to a dreamer's eye, like some gigantic Fortress, built line upon line and tower upon tower,--with huge ramparts raised about it frowningly as though
Historical
The Upas Tree
WHICH SHALL SPEAK FIRST? Ronald West stood at the window of his wife's sitting-room, looking across the bright garden-borders to the wide park beyond, and wondering how on earth he should open the subject of which his mind had been full during their morning ride. He had swung off his own horse a few moments before; thrown the bridle to a waiting groom, and made his way round to her stirrup. Then he had laid his hand
Women's Fiction
The Voyage Out
As the streets that lead from the Strand to the Embankment are very narrow, it is better not to walk down them arm-in-arm. If you persist, lawyers’ clerks will have to make flying leaps into the mud; young lady typists will have to fidget behind you. In the streets of London where beauty goes unregarded, eccentricity must pay the penalty, and it is better not to be very tall, to wear a long blue cloak, or to beat the
Historical
The Visits of Elizabeth
Elizabeth enters country-house society with beauty, curiosity, and a gift for noticing everything adults would rather hide. Through visits, dinners, flirtations, and sharp private observations, she learns how desire, vanity, class, and reputation shape the lives around her. The Visits of Elizabeth is a bright social romance told with wit and youthful candor, following a heroine discovering both the pleasures and the traps of fashionable life. Her letters make every room feel alive with gossip, attraction, rivalry, scandal, and surprise.
Women's Fiction
The Song of the Lark
FRIENDS OF CHILDHOOD I Dr. Howard Archie had just come up from a game of pool with the Jewish clothier and two traveling men who happened to be staying overnight in Moonstone. His offices were in the Duke Block, over the drug store. Larry, the doctor’s man, had lit the overhead light in the waiting-room and the double student’s lamp on the desk in the study. The isinglass sides of the hard-coal burner were aglow, and
Historical
A Lost Lady
PART I PART II PART ONE I Thirty or forty years ago, in one of those grey towns along the Burlington railroad, which are so much greyer to-day than they were then, there was a house well known from Omaha to Denver for its hospitality and for a certain charm of atmosphere. Well known, that is to say, to the railroad aristocracy of that time; men who had to do with the railroad itself, or with one of the "land companie
Mystery & Suspense
Anne Hereford
MRS. EDWIN BARLEY. An express train was dashing along a line of rails in the heart of England. On one of the first-class carriages there had been a board, bearing the intimation 'For Ladies Only,' but the guard took it off when the train first started. It had come many miles since. Seated inside, the only passenger in that compartment, was a little girl in deep mourning. All was black about her save the white frills
Mystery & Suspense
The Woman in White
(of Clement’s Inn, Teacher of Drawing) This is the story of what a Woman’s patience can endure, and what a Man’s resolution can achieve. If the machinery of the Law could be depended on to fathom every case of suspicion, and to conduct every process of inquiry, with moderate assistance only from the lubricating influences of oil of gold, the events which fill these pages might have claimed their share of the public a
Historical
Thelma
"Dream by dream shot through her eyes, and each Outshone the last that lighted." SWINBURNE. Midnight,--without darkness, without stars! Midnight--and the unwearied sun stood, yet visible in the heavens, like a victorious king throned on a dais of royal purple bordered with gold. The sky above him,--his canopy,--gleamed with a cold yet lustrous blue, while across it slowly flitted a few wandering clouds of palest ambe
Historical
Three Weeks
Now this is an episode in a young man's life, and has no real beginning or ending. And you who are old and have forgotten the passions of youth may condemn it. But there are others who are neither old nor young who, perhaps, will understand and find some interest in the study of a strange woman who made the illumination of a brief space. Paul Verdayne was young and fresh and foolish when his episode began. He believe
Historical
To the Lighthouse
THE WINDOW 1 "Yes, of course, if it's fine tomorrow," said Mrs. Ramsay. "But you'll have to be up with the lark," she added. To her son these words conveyed an extraordinary joy, as if it were settled, the expedition were bound to take place, and the wonder to which he had looked forward, for years and years it seemed, was, after a night's darkness and a day's sail, within touch. Since he belonged, even at the age of
Dark Romance
Vendetta
PREFACE Lest those who read the following pages should deem this story at all improbable, it is perhaps necessary to say that its chief incidents are founded on an actual occurrence which took place in Naples during the last scathing visitation of the cholera in 1884. We know well enough, by the chronicle of daily journalism, that the infidelity of wives is, most unhappily, becoming common—far too common for the peac
Paranormal
Verner's Pride
I. RACHEL FROST 7 II. THE WILLOW POND 19 III. THE NEWS BROUGHT HOME 26 IV. THE CROWD IN THE MOONLIGHT 32 V. THE TALL GENTLEMAN IN THE LANE 36 VI. DINAH ROY'S "GHOST" 47 VII. THE REVELATION AT THE INQUEST 55 VIII. ROBIN'S VOW 60 IX. MR. VERNER'S ESTRANGEMENT 67 X. LADY VERNER 72 XI. LUCY TEMPEST 77 XII. DR. WEST'S HOME 86 XIII. A CONTEMPLATED VOYAGE 96 XIV. THE NIGHT BEFORE THE WEDDING 104 XV. A TROUBLED MIND 106 XVI.
Historical
Women in Love
SISTERS Ursula and Gudrun Brangwen sat one morning in the window-bay of their father’s house in Beldover, working and talking. Ursula was stitching a piece of brightly-coloured embroidery, and Gudrun was drawing upon a board which she held on her knee. They were mostly silent, talking as their thoughts strayed through their minds. “Ursula,” said Gudrun, “don’t you _really want_ to get married?” Ursula laid her embroi
Women's Fiction
Bessy Rane
THE ANONYMOUS LETTER. It was an intensely dark night. What with the mist that hung around from below, and the unusual gloom above, Dr. Rane began to think he might have done well to bring a lantern with him, to guide his steps up Ham Lane, when he should turn into it. He would not be able to spare time to pick his way there. A gentleman--so news had been brought to him--was lying in sudden extremity, and his services
Historical
Death Comes for the Archbishop
_PROLOGUE_ AT ROME ONE summer evening in the year 1848, three Cardinals and a missionary Bishop from America were dining together in the gardens of a villa in the Sabine hills, overlooking Rome. The villa was famous for the fine view from its terrace. The hidden garden in which the four men sat at table lay some twenty feet below the south end of this terrace, and was a mere shelf of rock, overhanging a steep declivi
Historical
Freckles
Wherein Great Risks Are Taken and the Limberlost Guard Is Hired Freckles came down the corduroy that crosses the lower end of the Limberlost. At a glance he might have been mistaken for a tramp, but he was truly seeking work. He was intensely eager to belong somewhere and to be attached to almost any enterprise that would furnish him food and clothing. Long before he came in sight of the camp of the Grand Rapids Lumb
Women's Fiction
Her Father's Daughter
“What Kind of Shoes Are the Shoes You Wear?” “What makes you wear such funny shoes?” Linda Strong thrust forward a foot and critically examined the narrow vamp, the projecting sole, the broad, low heel of her well-worn brown calf-skin shoe. Then her glance lifted to the face of Donald Whiting, one of the most brilliant and popular seniors of the High School. Her eyes narrowed in a manner habitual to her when thinking
Mystery & Suspense
Jezebel's Daughter
In the matter of Jezebel's Daughter, my recollections begin with the deaths of two foreign gentlemen, in two different countries, on the same day of the same year. They were both men of some importance in their way, and both strangers to each other. Mr. Ephraim Wagner, merchant (formerly of Frankfort-on-the-Main), died in London on the third day of September, 1828. Doctor Fontaine--famous in his time for discoveries
Historical
Lavender and Old Lace
LAVENDER AND OLD LACE By Myrtle Reed 1902 I. THE LIGHT IN THE WINDOW II. THE ATTIC. III. MISS AINSLIE IV. A GUEST V. THE RUMOURS OF THE VALLEY VI. THE GARDEN VII. THE MAN WHO HESITATES VIII. SUMMER DAYS IX. BY HUMBLE MEANS X. LOVE LETTERS XI. THE ROSE OF ALL THE WORLD XII. BRIDE AND GROOM XIII. PLANS XIV. “FOR REMEMBRANCE” XV. THE SECRET AND THE DREAM XVI. SOME ONE WHO LOVED HER XVII. DAWN I. The Light in the Window
Women's Fiction
O Pioneers!
I II III TO THE MEMORY OF SARAH ORNE JEWETT IN WHOSE BEAUTIFUL AND DELICATE WORK THERE IS THE PERFECTION THAT ENDURES PRAIRIE SPRING Evening and the flat land, Rich and sombre and always silent; The miles of fresh-plowed soil, Heavy and black, full of strength and harshness; The growing wheat, the growing weeds, The toiling horses, the tired men; The long empty roads, Sullen fires of sunset, fading, The eternal, unre
Women's Fiction
Mrs. Dalloway
Clarissa Dalloway prepares for an evening party in London, but the simple errands of the day open doors into memory, regret, desire, and the life she might have chosen. Around her, other lives move through the city with their own wounds and private fears. Mrs. Dalloway is an intimate portrait of one day, one woman, and the emotional weight hidden beneath polished manners, social rituals, and ordinary conversation. The drama is quiet but piercing, shaped by time, loneliness, and the pressure to appear composed.
Women's Fiction
At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern
CHAPTER PAGE I. The End of the Honeymoon 1 II. The Day Afterward 18 III. The First Caller 35 IV. Finances 53 V. Mrs. Smithers 68 VI. The Coming of Elaine 84 VII. An Uninvited Guest 100 VIII. More 119 IX. Another 136 X. Still More 154 XI. Mrs. Dodd's Third Husband 173 XII. Her Gift to the World 191 XIII. A Sensitive Soul 210 XIV. Mrs. Dodd's Fifth Fate 226 XV. Treasure-Trove 243 XVI. Good Fortune 264 XVII. The Lady El
Historical
Orlando
He--for there could be no doubt of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it--was in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which swung from the rafters. It was the colour of an old football, and more or less the shape of one, save for the sunken cheeks and a strand or two of coarse, dry hair, like the hair on a cocoanut. Orlando's father, or perhaps his grandfather, had struck it from th
Historical
Sons and Lovers
THE EARLY MARRIED LIFE OF THE MORELS “The Bottoms” succeeded to “Hell Row”. Hell Row was a block of thatched, bulging cottages that stood by the brookside on Greenhill Lane. There lived the colliers who worked in the little gin-pits two fields away. The brook ran under the alder trees, scarcely soiled by these small mines, whose coal was drawn to the surface by donkeys that plodded wearily in a circle round a gin. An
Historical
The Doctor's Wife
A YOUNG MAN FROM THE COUNTRY There were two surgeons in the little town of Graybridge-on-the-Wayverne, in pretty pastoral Midlandshire,--Mr. Pawlkatt, who lived in a big, new, brazen-faced house in the middle of the queer old High Street; and John Gilbert, the parish doctor, who lived in his own house on the outskirts of Graybridge, and worked very hard for a smaller income than that which the stylish Mr. Pawlkatt de
Historical
The Following of the Star
THE STILL WATERS OF BRAMBLEDENE David Rivers closed his Bible suddenly, slipped it into the inner pocket of his coat, and, leaning back in his armchair, relaxed the tension at which he had been sitting while he mentally put his thoughts into terse and forcible phraseology. His evening sermon was ready. The final sentence had silently thrilled into the quiet study, in the very words in which it would presently resound
Historical
The Keeper of the Door
THE LESSON "Then he's such a prig!" said Olga. "You should never use a word you can't define," observed Nick, from the depths of the hammock in which his meagre person reposed at length. She made a face at him, and gave the hammock a vicious twitch which caused him to rock with some violence for several seconds. As he was wont pathetically to remark, everyone bullied him because he was small and possessed only one ar
Historical
My Mortal Enemy
Myra Henshawe once defied her wealthy family for love, turning her runaway marriage into a legend for everyone who heard it. Years later, a younger narrator meets the brilliant, difficult woman behind the story and begins to see the cost of passion, pride, and disappointment. My Mortal Enemy follows a marriage shadowed by memory and resentment, revealing how romance can harden into rivalry when dreams and reality refuse to agree. The tension lies in watching admiration become unease as old choices reveal their price.
Dark Romance
Vixen
A Pretty Horsebreaker. The moon had newly risen, a late October moon, a pale almost imperceptible crescent, above the dark pine spires in the thicket through which Roderick Vawdrey came, gun in hand, after a long day's rabbit-shooting. It was not his nearest way home, but he liked the broad clearing in the pine wood, which had a ghostly look at dusk, and was so still and lonely that the dart of a squirrel through the
Historical
Through the Postern Gate
Through the Postern Gate _A ROMANCE IN SEVEN DAYS_ By Florence L. Barclay Author of "The Rosary," "The Mistress of Shenstone," "The Following of the Star," etc London and New York G. P. Putnam's Sons 1912 146_th Thousand_ _Made and Printed in Great Britain by The Camelot Press Limited, Southampton._ TO MY MOTHER I am going to win you. Then it will seem to you, as it does to me, the only possible thing to do." His bro
Mystery & Suspense
The Law and the Lady
“FOR after this manner in the old time the holy women also who trusted in God adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands; even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord; whose daughters ye are as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.” Concluding the Marriage Service of the Church of England in those well-known words, my uncle Starkweather shut up his book, and looked at me ac
Historical
The Mistress of Shenstone
ON THE TERRACE AT SHENSTONE Three o'clock on a dank afternoon, early in November. The wintry sunshine, in fitful gleams, pierced the greyness of the leaden sky. The great trees in Shenstone Park stood gaunt and bare, spreading wide arms over the sodden grass. All nature seemed waiting the first fall of winter's snow, which should hide its deadness and decay under a lovely pall of sparkling white, beneath which a prom
Historical
The Professor's House
THE FAMILY I THE moving was over and done. Professor St. Peter was alone in the dismantled house where he had lived ever since his marriage, where he had worked out his career and brought up his two daughters. It was almost as ugly as it is possible for a house to be; square, three stories in height, painted the colour of ashes--the front porch just too narrow for comfort, with a slanting floor and sagging steps. As
Historical
The Rocks of Valpré
THE KNIGHT OF THE MAGIC CAVE When Cinders began to dig a hole no power on earth, except brute force, could ever stop him till he sank exhausted. Not even the sight of a crab could divert his thoughts from this entrancing occupation, much less his mistress's shrill whistle; and this was strange, for on all other occasions it was his custom to display the most exemplary obedience. Of a cheerful disposition was Cinders,
Women's Fiction
The Shadow of Ashlydyat
I. SIXTY POUNDS TO OLD JEKYL 166 II. WHY DID IT ANGER HIM? 173 III. CECIL'S ROMANCE 179 IV. CHARLOTTE PAIN'S "TURN-OUT" 185 V. A REVELATION 191 VI. MR. VERRALL'S CHAMBERS 202 VII. BEYOND RECALL 208 VIII. THE TRADITION OF THE DARK PLAIN 216 IX. THE DEAD ALIVE AGAIN 225 X. NINE THOUSAND AND FORTY-FIVE POUNDS 236 XI. THOSE BONDS AGAIN! 239 XII. "I SEE IT: BUT I CANNOT EXPLAIN IT" 244 XIII. A RED-LETTER DAY FOR MRS. BOND
Historical
The Song of the Cardinal
The Song of the Cardinal by Gene Stratton-Porter IN LOVING TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER MARK STRATTON "For him every work of God manifested a new and heretofore unappreciated loveliness." He was the first to climb to the edge of the nest and the first to hop on a limb. He surprised his parents by finding a slug, and winged his first flight to such a distance that his adoring mother almost went into spasms lest
Historical
The Top of the World
ADVICE "You ought to get married, Miss Sylvia," said old Jeffcott, the head gardener, with a wag of his hoary beard. "You'll need to be your own mistress now." "I should hope I am that anyway," said, Sylvia with a little laugh. She stood in the great vinery--a vivid picture against a background of clustering purple fruit. The sunset glinted on her tawny hair. Her red-brown eyes, set wide apart, held a curious look, h
Paranormal
The Master-Christian
In the ancient city of Rouen, church bells, public devotion, and private doubt surround a world where faith has become entangled with power, pride, and human weakness. The Master-Christian follows spiritual conflict through a dramatic, atmospheric story of belief, hypocrisy, temptation, and moral reckoning. With its cathedral shadows and charged religious tension, the novel explores what remains of conscience when institutions and desire pull the soul in different directions. Its drama moves between public ceremony and private crisis, giving the story a solemn, mysterious force.
Historical
The White Ladies of Worcester
THE SUBTERRANEAN WAY The slanting rays of afternoon sunshine, pouring through stone arches, lay in broad, golden bands, upon the flags of the Convent cloister. The old lay-sister, Mary Antony, stepped from the cool shade of the cell passage and, blinking at the sunshine, shuffled slowly to her appointed post at the top of the crypt steps, up which would shortly pass the silent procession of nuns returning from Vesper
Women's Fiction
The Career of Katherine Bush
Dusk was coming on when Katherine Bush left the office of the Jew money lenders, Livingstone and Devereux, in Holles Street. Theirs was a modest establishment with no indication upon the wire blind of the only street window as to the trade practised by the two owners of the aristocratic names emblazoned upon the dingy transparency. But it was very well known all the same to numerous young bloods who often sought temp
Women's Fiction
The Trespasser
I “Take off that mute, do!” cried Louisa, snatching her fingers from the piano keys, and turning abruptly to the violinist. Helena looked slowly from her music. “My dear Louisa,” she replied, “it would be simply unendurable.” She stood tapping her white skirt with her bow in a kind of a pathetic forbearance. “But I can’t understand it,” cried Louisa, bouncing on her chair with the exaggeration of one who is indignant
Historical
The Way of an Eagle
THE TRUST The long clatter of an irregular volley of musketry rattled warningly from the naked mountain ridges; over a great grey shoulder of rock the sun sank in a splendid opal glow; from very near at hand came the clatter of tin cups and the sound of a subdued British laugh. And in the room of the Brigadier-General a man lifted his head from his hands and stared upwards with unseeing, fixed eyes. There was an impo
Mystery & Suspense
Lost Man's Lane
Amelia Butterworth enters a case that has made Lost Man's Lane a name whispered with fear. Principled, observant, and unwilling to accept easy answers, she is drawn toward a mystery shaped by secrecy, local dread, and the uneasy behavior of people who know more than they say. As private histories and public respectability begin to clash, she tests every clue, every silence, and every social performance around her. The atmosphere is tense, personal, and full of danger hiding behind ordinary manners.
Mystery & Suspense
The Knave of Diamonds
THE MISSING HEART There came a sudden blare of music from the great ballroom below, and the woman who stood alone at an open window on the first floor shrugged her shoulders and shivered a little. The night air blew in brisk and cold upon her uncovered neck, but except for that slight, involuntary shiver she scarcely seemed aware of it. The room behind her was brilliantly lighted but empty. Some tables had been set f
Mystery & Suspense
That Affair Next Door
When an unsettling discovery occurs next door, Amelia Butterworth refuses to remain merely a curious neighbor. Intelligent, opinionated, and alert to every contradiction, she steps into a mystery of family tension, hidden movements, and suspicious behavior behind respectable walls. That Affair Next Door turns domestic observation into detective work, following a woman whose sharp eyes and stubborn instincts challenge the men who think they already control the case. The suspense grows from drawing-room details, family secrets, and one woman's refusal to look away.
Women's Fiction
A Girl of the Limberlost
WHEREIN ELNORA GOES TO HIGH SCHOOL AND LEARNS MANY LESSONS NOT FOUND IN HER BOOKS “Elnora Comstock, have you lost your senses?” demanded the angry voice of Katharine Comstock while she glared at her daughter. “Why mother!” faltered the girl. “Don’t you ‘why mother’ me!” cried Mrs. Comstock. “You know very well what I mean. You’ve given me no peace until you’ve had your way about this going to school business; I’ve fi
Paranormal
A Romance of Two Worlds
AN ARTIST'S STUDIO. In the winter of 188-, I was afflicted by a series of nervous ailments, brought on by overwork and overworry. Chief among these was a protracted and terrible insomnia, accompanied by the utmost depression of spirits and anxiety of mind. I became filled with the gloomiest anticipations of evil; and my system was strung up by slow degrees to such a high tension of physical and mental excitement, tha
Paranormal
A Spinner in the Sun
I "The Fire was Kind" The little house was waiting, as it had waited for many years. Grey and weather-worn, it leaned toward the sheltering hillside as though to gather from the kindly earth some support and comfort for old age. Five-and-twenty Winters had broken its spirit, five-and-twenty Springs had not brought back the heart of it, that had once gone out, with dancing feet and singing, and had returned no more. F
Women's Fiction
Aaron's Rod
There was a large, brilliant evening star in the early twilight, and underfoot the earth was half frozen. It was Christmas Eve. Also the War was over, and there was a sense of relief that was almost a new menace. A man felt the violence of the nightmare released now into the general air. Also there had been another wrangle among the men on the pit-bank that evening. Aaron Sisson was the last man on the little black r
Paranormal
Ardath
THE MONASTERY. Deep in the heart of the Caucasus mountains a wild storm was gathering. Drear shadows drooped and thickened above the Pass of Dariel,--that terrific gorge which like a mere thread seems to hang between the toppling frost-bound heights above and the black abysmal depths below,--clouds, fringed ominously with lurid green and white, drifted heavily yet swiftly across the jagged peaks where, looming largel
Mystery & Suspense
Armadale
ARMADALE By Wilkie Collins TO JOHN FORSTER. In acknowledgment of the services which he has rendered to the cause of literature by his “Life of Goldsmith;” and in affectionate remembrance of a friendship which is associated with some of the happiest years of my life. Readers in general--on whose friendly reception experience has given me some reason to rely--will, I venture to hope, appreciate whatever merit there may
Women's Fiction
At the Foot of the Rainbow
THE RAT-CATCHERS OF THE WABASH "Hey, you swate-scented little heart-warmer!" cried Jimmy Malone, as he lifted his tenth trap, weighted with a struggling muskrat, from the Wabash. "Varmint you may be to all the rist of creation, but you mane a night at Casey's to me." Jimmy whistled softly as he reset the trap. For the moment he forgot that he was five miles from home, that it was a mile farther to the end of his line
Historical
Aurora Floyd
HOW A RICH BANKER MARRIED AN ACTRESS. Faint streaks of crimson glimmer here and there amidst the rich darkness of the Kentish woods. Autumn's red finger has been lightly laid upon the foliage--sparingly, as the artist puts the brighter tints into his picture: but the grandeur of an August sunset blazes upon the peaceful landscape, and lights all into glory. The encircling woods and wide lawn-like meadows, the still p
Historical
Charles Rex
ENNUI "I shall go to sea to-morrow," said Saltash, with sudden decision. "I'm tired of this place, Larpent,--fed up on repletion." "Then by all means let us go, my lord!" said Larpent, with the faint glimmer of a smile behind his beard, which was the only expression of humour he ever permitted himself. "Believe you're fed up too," said Saltash, flashing a critical look upon him. Captain Larpent said nothing, deeming
Mystery & Suspense
East Lynne
THE LADY ISABEL. In an easy-chair of the spacious and handsome library of his town-house, sat William, Earl of Mount Severn. His hair was gray, the smoothness of his expansive brow was defaced by premature wrinkles, and his once attractive face bore the pale, unmistakable look of dissipation. One of his feet was cased in folds of linen, as it rested on the soft velvet ottoman, speaking of gout as plainly as any foot
Historical
Elizabeth Visits America
ELIZABETH VISITS AMERICA BY ELINOR GLYN Author of "Three Weeks," "The Visits of Elizabeth," "The Reflections of Ambrosine," "The Vicissitudes of Evangeline," "Beyond the Rocks," "The damsel and the Sage" 1909 [Illustration "the Marchioness of Valmond" (Elizabeth)] I don't know what I shall do next or where I shall go--I mean to take the first chance of having some fun I can get. If he could go off in a huff--but I wo
Mystery & Suspense
Elster's Folly
BY THE EARLY TRAIN. The ascending sun threw its slanting rays abroad on a glorious August morning, and the little world below began to awaken into life--the life of another day of sanguine pleasure or of fretting care. Not on many fairer scenes did those sunbeams shed their radiance than on one existing in the heart of England; but almost any landscape will look beautiful in the early light of a summer's morning. The
Historical
Greatheart
THE WANDERER. Biddy Maloney stood at the window of her mistress's bedroom, and surveyed the world with eyes of stern disapproval. There was nothing of the smart lady's maid about Biddy. She abominated smart lady's maids. A flyaway French cap and an apron barely reaching to the knees were to her the very essence of flighty impropriety. There was just such a creature in attendance upon Lady Grace de Vigne who occupied
Mystery & Suspense
Henry Dunbar
AFTER OFFICE HOURS IN THE HOUSE OF DUNBAR, DUNBAR, AND BALDERBY. The house of Dunbar, Dunbar, and Balderby, East India bankers, was one of the richest firms in the city of London—so rich that it would be quite in vain to endeavour to describe the amount of its wealth. It was something fabulous, people said. The offices were situated in a dingy and narrow thoroughfare leading out of King William Street, and were certa
Paranormal
His Hour
The Sphinx was smiling its eternal smile. It was two o'clock in the morning. The tourists had returned to Cairo, and only an Arab or two lingered near the boy who held Tamara's camel, and then gradually slunk away; thus, but for Hafis, she was alone--alone with her thoughts and the Sphinx. The strange, mystical face looked straight at her from the elevation where she sat. Its sensual mocking calm penetrated her brain
Historical
Jacob's Room
"So of course," wrote Betty Flanders, pressing her heels rather deeper in the sand, "there was nothing for it but to leave." Slowly welling from the point of her gold nib, pale blue ink dissolved the full stop; for there her pen stuck; her eyes fixed, and tears slowly filled them. The entire bay quivered; the lighthouse wobbled; and she had the illusion that the mast of Mr. Connor's little yacht was bending like a wa
Historical
Beyond the Rocks
Theodora is young, beautiful, and trapped in an engagement arranged more for convenience than love. When duty pushes her toward the wealthy Mr. Brown, she tries to accept the life chosen for her, even as a more dangerous attraction begins to awaken. Set among polished society rooms, seaside escapes, and strict expectations, Beyond the Rocks follows a woman caught between security, desire, and the scandal that could destroy everything she is expected to protect. Every choice asks whether safety is worth the silence of the heart.
Historical
Laddie
Little Sister "And could another child-world be my share, I'd be a Little Sister there." "Have I got a Little Sister anywhere in this house?" inquired Laddie at the door, in his most coaxing voice. "Yes sir," I answered, dropping the trousers I was making for Hezekiah, my pet bluejay, and running as fast as I could. There was no telling what minute May might take it into her head that she was a little sister and reac
Mystery & Suspense
Lady Audley's Secret
LUCY. It lay down in a hollow, rich with fine old timber and luxuriant pastures; and you came upon it through an avenue of limes, bordered on either side by meadows, over the high hedges of which the cattle looked inquisitively at you as you passed, wondering, perhaps, what you wanted; for there was no thorough-fare, and unless you were going to the Court you had no business there at all. At the end of this avenue th
Historical
Man and Wife
MAN AND WIFE by Wilkie Collins PROLOGUE.--THE IRISH MARRIAGE. Part the First. THE VILLA AT HAMPSTEAD. I. ON a summer’s morning, between thirty and forty years ago, two girls were crying bitterly in the cabin of an East Indian passenger ship, bound outward, from Gravesend to Bombay. They were both of the same age--eighteen. They had both, from childhood upward, been close and dear friends at the same school. They were
Women's Fiction
Michael O'Halloran
_Happy Home in Sunrise Alley_ "_Aw_ KID, _come on! Be square!_" "_You look out what you say to me._" "_But ain't you going to keep your word?_" "_Mickey, do you want your head busted?_" "_Naw! But I did your work so you could loaf; now I want the pay you promised me._" "_Let's see you get it! Better take it from me, hadn't you?_" "_You're twice my size; you know I can't, Jimmy!_" "_Then you know it too, don't you?_"
Women's Fiction
Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles
THE CLERGYMAN'S DAUGHTER. In a very populous district of London, somewhat north of Temple Bar, there stood, many years ago, a low, ancient church amidst other churches--for you know that London abounds in them. The doors of this church were partially open one dark evening in December, and a faint, glimmering light might be observed inside by the passers-by. It was known well enough what was going on within, and why t
Women's Fiction
My Ántonia
Years after leaving the Nebraska prairie behind, Jim Burden looks back on Antonia, the immigrant girl whose strength and vitality shaped his childhood. Through memory, distance, and longing, the story follows frontier hardship, family struggle, friendship, and the emotional hold of a woman who becomes inseparable from the land itself. My Antonia is a reflective portrait of youth, resilience, and the people who remain vivid long after life has moved on. At its center is a woman remembered for courage, warmth, and fierce endurance.
Historical
Night and Day
It was a Sunday evening in October, and in common with many other young ladies of her class, Katharine Hilbery was pouring out tea. Perhaps a fifth part of her mind was thus occupied, and the remaining parts leapt over the little barrier of day which interposed between Monday morning and this rather subdued moment, and played with the things one does voluntarily and normally in the daylight. But although she was sile
Mystery & Suspense
No Name
TO FRANCIS CARR BEARD; (FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF ENGLAND) IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE TIME WHEN THE CLOSING SCENES OF THIS STORY WERE WRITTEN. PREFACE. The main purpose of this story is to appeal to the reader’s interest in a subject which has been the theme of some of the greatest writers, living and dead—but which has never been, and can never be, exhausted, because it is a subject eternally interesting
Historical
Red Hair
Evangeline is beautiful, clever, and suddenly left with almost nothing after the fortune she expected slips away. With society watching and security uncertain, she decides to use charm, wit, and nerve to survive a world that rewards wealth more than honesty. Red Hair follows a young woman stepping into danger, flirtation, and social games where every glance can become an opportunity, and every opportunity may carry a cost. Her playful voice hides real vulnerability as she learns how risky independence can be.
Historical
One of Ours
I. Claude Wheeler opened his eyes before the sun was up and vigorously shook his younger brother, who lay in the other half of the same bed. "Ralph, Ralph, get awake! Come down and help me wash the car." "What for?" "Why, aren't we going to the circus today?" "Car's all right. Let me alone." The boy turned over and pulled the sheet up to his face, to shut out the light which was beginning to come through the curtainl
Women's Fiction
Poor Miss Finch
Madame Pratolungo presents Herself You are here invited to read the story of an Event which occurred in an out-of-the-way corner of England, some years since. The persons principally concerned in the Event are:--a blind girl; two (twin) brothers; a skilled surgeon; and a curious foreign woman. I am the curious foreign woman. And I take it on myself--for reasons which will presently appear--to tell the story. So far w
Historical
Old Rose and Silver
In a world of music, memory, and carefully guarded feeling, Rose finds herself surrounded by older sorrows and new expectations. Madame Bernard's sharp wit and hidden tenderness frame a story where love is shaped by duty, loss, and the choices women are urged to make before they fully understand their own hearts. Old Rose and Silver blends romantic tension with family feeling, asking whether old wounds can leave room for new happiness. The mood is gentle but emotional, with quiet longing beneath every polite conversation.
Women's Fiction
Roland Yorke
IN THE MOONLIGHT. The scene of this Prologue to the story about to be written was a certain cathedral town, of which most of you have heard before, and the time close upon midnight. It was a warm night at the beginning of March. The air was calm and still; the bright moon was shedding her pure light with unusual brilliancy on the city, lying directly underneath her beams. On the pinnacles of the time-honoured cathedr
Mystery & Suspense
St. Martin's Eve
THE LITTLE HEIR. The dull sombre light of a November afternoon was rapidly giving place to twilight. The day had been wet and cold; and the sodden leaves that strewed the park of one of England's fair domains did not contribute to the cheerfulness of the scene. The mansion belonging to it stood on a gentle eminence, well open to view, and looking boldly down on its lands: a long but not high house of red brick, with
Women's Fiction
The Channings
I remember the gleams and glooms that dart Across the schoolboy’s brain; The song and the silence in the heart, That in part are prophecies, and in part Are longings wild and vain. And the voice of that fitful song Sings on and is never still: “A boy’s will is the wind’s will, And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.” Strange to me now are the forms I meet When I visit the dear old town; But the native air
Women's Fiction
The Dead Secret
THE TWENTY-THIRD OF AUGUST, 1829. "Will she last out the night, I wonder?" "Look at the clock, Mathew." "Ten minutes past twelve! She HAS lasted the night out. She has lived, Robert, to see ten minutes of the new day." These words were spoken in the kitchen of a large country-house situated on the west coast of Cornwall. The speakers were two of the men-servants composing the establishment of Captain Treverton, an of
Mystery & Suspense
The Filigree Ball
THE FORBIDDEN ROOM I. “THE MOORE HOUSE? ARE YOU SPEAKING OF THE MOORE HOUSE?” For a detective whose talents, had not been recognized at headquarters, I possessed an ambition which, fortunately for my standing with the lieutenant of the precinct, had not yet been expressed in words. Though I had small reason for expecting great things of myself, I had always cherished the hope that if a big case came my way I should b
Historical
The Harvester
“Bel, come here!” The Harvester sat in the hollow worn in the hewed log stoop by the feet of his father and mother and his own sturdier tread, and rested his head against the casing of the cabin door when he gave the command. The tip of the dog's nose touched the gravel between his paws as he crouched flat on earth, with beautiful eyes steadily watching the master, but he did not move a muscle. “Bel, come here!” Twin
Mystery & Suspense
The House of the Whispering Pines
SMOKE I THE HESITATING STEP To have reared a towering scheme Of happiness, and to behold it razed, Were nothing: all men hope, and see their hopes Frustrate, and grieve awhile, and hope anew; But-- _A Blot in the ’Scutcheon._ The moon rode high; but ominous clouds were rushing towards it--clouds heavy with snow. I watched these clouds as I drove recklessly, desperately, over the winter roads. I had just missed the de
Women's Fiction
The Keeper of the Bees
"James Lewis Macfarlane." The bearer of this name swung his feet to the floor and sat up suddenly, cupping his big hands over his knees to steady himself. For the past hour, between periods of half-conscious drowsiness, he had been hearing the verdict that men in authority were pronouncing upon men over whose destinies they held control; but it had not appealed to him that his own case might come under consideration.
Mystery & Suspense
The Lamp in the Desert
BEGGAR'S CHOICE A great roar of British voices pierced the jewelled curtain of the Indian night. A toast with musical honours was being drunk in the sweltering dining-room of the officers' mess. The enthusiastic hubbub spread far, for every door and window was flung wide. Though the season was yet in its infancy, the heat was intense. Markestan had the reputation in the Indian Army for being one of the hottest corner
Mystery & Suspense
The Leavenworth Case
THE PROBLEM SOLVED XXXIV. MR. GRYCE RESUMES CONTROL 332 XXXV. FINE WORK 351 XXXVI. GATHERED THREADS 364 XXXVII. CULMINATION 373 XXXVIII. A FULL CONFESSION 384 XXXIX. THE OUTCOME OF A GREAT CRIME 405 Illustrations PAGE “I did not go, but stood watching the firelight flicker on her black dress” Frontispiece “What was my astonishment to come upon Miss Eleanore Leavenworth standing at the side of her uncle’s bed, with hi
Historical
The Lost Girl
THE DECLINE OF MANCHESTER HOUSE Take a mining townlet like Woodhouse, with a population of ten thousand people, and three generations behind it. This space of three generations argues a certain well-established society. The old “County” has fled from the sight of so much disembowelled coal, to flourish on mineral rights in regions still idyllic. Remains one great and inaccessible magnate, the local coal owner: three
Historical
The Man and the Moment
Michael Arranstoun folded a letter which he had been reading for the seventh time, with a vicious intentness, and then jumping up from the big leather chair in which he had been buried, he said aloud, "Damn!" When a young, rich and good-looking man says that particular word aloud with a fearful grind of the teeth, one may know that he is in the very devil of a temper! Michael Arranstoun was! And, to be sure, he had a
Historical
The Master's Violin
CHAPTER PAGE I--THE MASTER PLAYS 1 II--"MINE CREMONA" 20 III--THE GIFT OF PEACE 33 IV--SOCIAL POSITION 50 V--THE LIGHT OF DREAMS 65 VI--A LETTER 81 VII--FRIENDS 91 VIII--A BIT OF HUMAN DRIFTWOOD 105 IX--ROSEMARY AND MIGNONETTE 120 X--IN THE GARDEN 127 XI--"SUNSET AND EVENING STAR" 144 XII--THE FALSE LINE 159 XIII--TO IRIS 177 XIV--HER NAME-FLOWER 182 XV--LITTLE LADY 199 XVI--AFRAID OF LIFE 215 XVII--"HE LOVES HER STI
Mystery & Suspense
The Moonstone
FOURTH NARRATIVE FIFTH NARRATIVE SIXTH NARRATIVE I II III IV V SEVENTH NARRATIVE EIGHTH NARRATIVE EPILOGUE I II III PROLOGUE THE STORMING OF SERINGAPATAM (1799): _(Extracted from a Family Paper.)_ I I address these lines—written in India—to my relatives in England. My object is to explain the motive which has induced me to refuse the right hand of friendship to my cousin, John Herncastle. The reserve which I have hit
Historical
The Obstacle Race
BETTER THAN LONDON A long, green wave ran up, gleaming like curved glass in the sunlight, and broke in a million sparkles against a shelf of shingle. Above the shingle rose the soft cliffs, clothed with scrubby grass and crowned with gorse. "Columbus," said the stranger, "this is just the place for us." Columbus wagged a cheery tail and expressed complete agreement. He was watching a small crab hurrying among the sto
Women's Fiction
The Price of Things
"If one consciously and deliberately desires happiness on this plane," said the Russian, "one must have sufficient strength of will to banish all thought. The moment that one begins to probe the meaning of things, one has opened Pandora's box and it may be many lives before one discovers hope lying at the bottom of it." "What do you mean by thought? How can one not think?" Amaryllis Ardayre's large grey eyes opened i
Historical
The Rainbow
HOW TOM BRANGWEN MARRIED A POLISH LADY I The Brangwens had lived for generations on the Marsh Farm, in the meadows where the Erewash twisted sluggishly through alder trees, separating Derbyshire from Nottinghamshire. Two miles away, a church-tower stood on a hill, the houses of the little country town climbing assiduously up to it. Whenever one of the Brangwens in the fields lifted his head from his work, he saw the
Historical
The Reason Why
People often wondered what nation the great financier, Francis Markrute, originally sprang from. He was now a naturalized Englishman and he looked English enough. He was slight and fair, and had an immaculately groomed appearance generally--which even the best of valets cannot always produce. He wore his clothes with that quiet, unconscious air which is particularly English. He had no perceptible accent--only a delib
Women's Fiction
The Reflections of Ambrosine
The Reflections of Ambrosine A Novel by Elinor Glyn NOTE In thanking the readers who were kind enough to appreciate my "Visits of Elizabeth," I take this opportunity of saying that I did not write the two other books which appeared anonymously. The titles of those works were so worded that they gave the public the impression that I was their author. I have never written any book but the "Visits of Elizabeth." Everyth
Historical
The Rosary
ENTER THE DUCHESS. The peaceful stillness of an English summer afternoon brooded over the park and gardens at Overdene. A hush of moving sunlight and lengthening shadows lay upon the lawn, and a promise of refreshing coolness made the shade of the great cedar tree a place to be desired. The old stone house, solid, substantial, and unadorned, suggested unlimited spaciousness and comfort within; and was redeemed from p
Paranormal
The Secret Power
A cloud floated slowly above the mountain peak. Vast, fleecy and white as the crested foam of a sea-wave, it sailed through the sky with a divine air of majesty, seeming almost to express a consciousness of its own grandeur. Over a spacious tract of Southern California it extended its snowy canopy, moving from the distant Pacific Ocean across the heights of the Sierra Madre, now and then catching fire at its extreme
Historical
The Shadow of Victory
THE PROPHECY It was a long, low room, with a fireplace, roughly built of limestone, at one end of it. The blazing logs illuminated one corner and sent strange shadows into the others, while the winter wind moaned drearily outside. At the right and left of the fireplace were rude counters, hewn from logs, resting on stumps of unequal height, and behind them were shelves, packed with the sordid miscellany of a frontier
Paranormal
The Sorrows of Satan
I Do you know what it is to be poor? Not poor with the arrogant poverty complained of by certain people who have five or six thousand a year to live upon, and who yet swear they can hardly manage to make both ends meet, but really poor,--downright, cruelly, hideously poor, with a poverty that is graceless, sordid and miserable? Poverty that compels you to dress in your one suit of clothes till it is worn threadbare,-
Paranormal
The Soul of Lilith
Footnotes INTRODUCTORY NOTE. The following story does not assume to be what is generally understood by a “novel.” It is simply the account of a strange and daring experiment once actually attempted, and is offered to those who are interested in the unseen “possibilities” of the Hereafter, merely for what it is,--a single episode in the life of a man who voluntarily sacrificed his whole worldly career in a supreme eff
Mystery & Suspense
The Trail of the Serpent
THE GOOD SCHOOLMASTER. I DON’T suppose it rained harder in the good town of Slopperton-on-the-Sloshy than it rained anywhere else. But it did rain. There was scarcely an umbrella in Slopperton that could hold its own against the rain that came pouring down that November afternoon, between the hours of four and five. Every gutter in High Street, Slopperton; every gutter in Broad Street (which was of course the narrowe
Women's Fiction
He Knew He Was Right
He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope follows characters navigating reputation, money, family pressure, and the quiet rules of society. Behind polished drawing rooms and respectable choices, private desire and ambition create conflicts that can change a life. This is a layered story for readers who enjoy inheritance, marriage, social expectation, and emotional decisions with lasting consequences.
Women's Fiction
A Life for a Life
A Life for a Life by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik explores family loyalty, marriage, duty, and the private sacrifices hidden beneath everyday life. Its drama grows from domestic choices, social expectations, and the emotional bonds that both protect and constrain its characters. This is a warm yet serious story for readers who enjoy family secrets, moral tension, and heartfelt growth.
Historical
Alas!
Alas! by Rhoda Broughton offers an emotional story of attraction, pride, misunderstanding, and the consequences of choosing with the heart. Its relationships unfold through social pressure and private longing, giving the novel a strong romantic pull. Readers who enjoy dramatic love stories, complicated heroines, and sharp turns of feeling will find it compelling.
Women's Fiction
Anna of the Five Towns
Anna of the Five Towns by Arnold Bennett centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Women's Fiction
Babs the Impossible
Babs the Impossible by Sarah Grand centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Women's Fiction
Camilla
Camilla by Frances Burney follows characters navigating reputation, money, family pressure, and the quiet rules of society. Behind polished drawing rooms and respectable choices, private desire and ambition create conflicts that can change a life. This is a layered story for readers who enjoy inheritance, marriage, social expectation, and emotional decisions with lasting consequences.
Women's Fiction
Can You Forgive Her?
Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope follows characters navigating reputation, money, family pressure, and the quiet rules of society. Behind polished drawing rooms and respectable choices, private desire and ambition create conflicts that can change a life. This is a layered story for readers who enjoy inheritance, marriage, social expectation, and emotional decisions with lasting consequences.
Women's Fiction
Cecilia
Cecilia by Frances Burney follows characters navigating reputation, money, family pressure, and the quiet rules of society. Behind polished drawing rooms and respectable choices, private desire and ambition create conflicts that can change a life. This is a layered story for readers who enjoy inheritance, marriage, social expectation, and emotional decisions with lasting consequences.
Historical
Cometh Up as a Flower
Cometh Up as a Flower by Rhoda Broughton offers an emotional story of attraction, pride, misunderstanding, and the consequences of choosing with the heart. Its relationships unfold through social pressure and private longing, giving the novel a strong romantic pull. Readers who enjoy dramatic love stories, complicated heroines, and sharp turns of feeling will find it compelling.
Women's Fiction
Diana Tempest
Diana Tempest by Mary Cholmondeley centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Women's Fiction
Doctor Thorne
Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope follows characters navigating reputation, money, family pressure, and the quiet rules of society. Behind polished drawing rooms and respectable choices, private desire and ambition create conflicts that can change a life. This is a layered story for readers who enjoy inheritance, marriage, social expectation, and emotional decisions with lasting consequences.
Paranormal
Frankenstein
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley draws readers into a shadowed world of secrets, forbidden rooms, dangerous loyalties, and emotions that refuse to stay buried. Its atmosphere is tense and romantic, with mystery pressing against every private choice. Readers who enjoy old houses, moral danger, hidden identities, and love tested by fear will find a richly dramatic story shaped by suspense and longing.
Women's Fiction
Heartsease
Heartsease by Charlotte M. Yonge explores family loyalty, marriage, duty, and the private sacrifices hidden beneath everyday life. Its drama grows from domestic choices, social expectations, and the emotional bonds that both protect and constrain its characters. This is a warm yet serious story for readers who enjoy family secrets, moral tension, and heartfelt growth.
Women's Fiction
Hester
Hester by Margaret Oliphant explores family loyalty, marriage, duty, and the private sacrifices hidden beneath everyday life. Its drama grows from domestic choices, social expectations, and the emotional bonds that both protect and constrain its characters. This is a warm yet serious story for readers who enjoy family secrets, moral tension, and heartfelt growth.
Women's Fiction
Hilda Lessways
Hilda Lessways by Arnold Bennett centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Women's Fiction
Ideala
Ideala by Sarah Grand centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Historical
Jude the Obscure
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy is a deeply felt story of love, pride, loss, and difficult decisions. Set against a vivid social landscape, it follows people whose private hopes collide with duty, class, family, and fate. Readers who enjoy intense emotion, moral conflict, and relationships shaped by consequence will find a dramatic and absorbing novel.
Women's Fiction
Kirsteen
Kirsteen by Margaret Oliphant explores family loyalty, marriage, duty, and the private sacrifices hidden beneath everyday life. Its drama grows from domestic choices, social expectations, and the emotional bonds that both protect and constrain its characters. This is a warm yet serious story for readers who enjoy family secrets, moral tension, and heartfelt growth.
Women's Fiction
Lady Anna
Lady Anna by Anthony Trollope follows characters navigating reputation, money, family pressure, and the quiet rules of society. Behind polished drawing rooms and respectable choices, private desire and ambition create conflicts that can change a life. This is a layered story for readers who enjoy inheritance, marriage, social expectation, and emotional decisions with lasting consequences.
Historical
Marriage
Marriage by Susan Ferrier brings together romance, society, family expectation, and personal choice in a full-length emotional novel. The story follows characters facing pressure from love, reputation, money, and duty, while private feelings push against the world around them. It is a strong fit for readers who enjoy character-driven drama with romance and consequence.
Women's Fiction
Mistress and Maid
Mistress and Maid by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik explores family loyalty, marriage, duty, and the private sacrifices hidden beneath everyday life. Its drama grows from domestic choices, social expectations, and the emotional bonds that both protect and constrain its characters. This is a warm yet serious story for readers who enjoy family secrets, moral tension, and heartfelt growth.
Historical
Nancy
Nancy by Rhoda Broughton offers an emotional story of attraction, pride, misunderstanding, and the consequences of choosing with the heart. Its relationships unfold through social pressure and private longing, giving the novel a strong romantic pull. Readers who enjoy dramatic love stories, complicated heroines, and sharp turns of feeling will find it compelling.
Women's Fiction
Notwithstanding
Notwithstanding by Mary Cholmondeley centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Women's Fiction
Olive
Olive by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik explores family loyalty, marriage, duty, and the private sacrifices hidden beneath everyday life. Its drama grows from domestic choices, social expectations, and the emotional bonds that both protect and constrain its characters. This is a warm yet serious story for readers who enjoy family secrets, moral tension, and heartfelt growth.
Women's Fiction
Ombra
Ombra by Margaret Oliphant explores family loyalty, marriage, duty, and the private sacrifices hidden beneath everyday life. Its drama grows from domestic choices, social expectations, and the emotional bonds that both protect and constrain its characters. This is a warm yet serious story for readers who enjoy family secrets, moral tension, and heartfelt growth.
Women's Fiction
Phoebe, Junior
Phoebe, Junior by Margaret Oliphant explores family loyalty, marriage, duty, and the private sacrifices hidden beneath everyday life. Its drama grows from domestic choices, social expectations, and the emotional bonds that both protect and constrain its characters. This is a warm yet serious story for readers who enjoy family secrets, moral tension, and heartfelt growth.
Women's Fiction
Prisoners
Prisoners by Mary Cholmondeley centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Historical
Lodore
Lodore by Mary Shelley brings together romance, society, family expectation, and personal choice in a full-length emotional novel. The story follows characters facing pressure from love, reputation, money, and duty, while private feelings push against the world around them. It is a strong fit for readers who enjoy character-driven drama with romance and consequence.
Women's Fiction
Salem Chapel
Salem Chapel by Margaret Oliphant explores family loyalty, marriage, duty, and the private sacrifices hidden beneath everyday life. Its drama grows from domestic choices, social expectations, and the emotional bonds that both protect and constrain its characters. This is a warm yet serious story for readers who enjoy family secrets, moral tension, and heartfelt growth.
Historical
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy is a deeply felt story of love, pride, loss, and difficult decisions. Set against a vivid social landscape, it follows people whose private hopes collide with duty, class, family, and fate. Readers who enjoy intense emotion, moral conflict, and relationships shaped by consequence will find a dramatic and absorbing novel.
Women's Fiction
The Absentee
The Absentee by Maria Edgeworth follows characters navigating reputation, money, family pressure, and the quiet rules of society. Behind polished drawing rooms and respectable choices, private desire and ambition create conflicts that can change a life. This is a layered story for readers who enjoy inheritance, marriage, social expectation, and emotional decisions with lasting consequences.
Women's Fiction
The Belton Estate
The Belton Estate by Anthony Trollope follows characters navigating reputation, money, family pressure, and the quiet rules of society. Behind polished drawing rooms and respectable choices, private desire and ambition create conflicts that can change a life. This is a layered story for readers who enjoy inheritance, marriage, social expectation, and emotional decisions with lasting consequences.
Women's Fiction
The Beth Book
The Beth Book by Sarah Grand centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Women's Fiction
The Combined Maze
The Combined Maze by May Sinclair centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Women's Fiction
The Daisy Chain
The Daisy Chain by Charlotte M. Yonge explores family loyalty, marriage, duty, and the private sacrifices hidden beneath everyday life. Its drama grows from domestic choices, social expectations, and the emotional bonds that both protect and constrain its characters. This is a warm yet serious story for readers who enjoy family secrets, moral tension, and heartfelt growth.
Mystery & Suspense
The Danvers Jewels
The Danvers Jewels by Mary Cholmondeley centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Historical
Red as a Rose Is She
Red as a Rose Is She by Rhoda Broughton offers an emotional story of attraction, pride, misunderstanding, and the consequences of choosing with the heart. Its relationships unfold through social pressure and private longing, giving the novel a strong romantic pull. Readers who enjoy dramatic love stories, complicated heroines, and sharp turns of feeling will find it compelling.
Women's Fiction
The Heavenly Twins
The Heavenly Twins by Sarah Grand centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Women's Fiction
The Heir of Redclyffe
The Heir of Redclyffe by Charlotte M. Yonge explores family loyalty, marriage, duty, and the private sacrifices hidden beneath everyday life. Its drama grows from domestic choices, social expectations, and the emotional bonds that both protect and constrain its characters. This is a warm yet serious story for readers who enjoy family secrets, moral tension, and heartfelt growth.
Historical
The Inheritance
The Inheritance by Susan Ferrier brings together romance, society, family expectation, and personal choice in a full-length emotional novel. The story follows characters facing pressure from love, reputation, money, and duty, while private feelings push against the world around them. It is a strong fit for readers who enjoy character-driven drama with romance and consequence.
Mystery & Suspense
The Italian
The Italian by Ann Radcliffe draws readers into a shadowed world of secrets, forbidden rooms, dangerous loyalties, and emotions that refuse to stay buried. Its atmosphere is tense and romantic, with mystery pressing against every private choice. Readers who enjoy old houses, moral danger, hidden identities, and love tested by fear will find a richly dramatic story shaped by suspense and longing.
Women's Fiction
The Ladies Lindores
The Ladies Lindores by Margaret Oliphant explores family loyalty, marriage, duty, and the private sacrifices hidden beneath everyday life. Its drama grows from domestic choices, social expectations, and the emotional bonds that both protect and constrain its characters. This is a warm yet serious story for readers who enjoy family secrets, moral tension, and heartfelt growth.
Women's Fiction
The Marriage of Elinor
The Marriage of Elinor by Margaret Oliphant explores family loyalty, marriage, duty, and the private sacrifices hidden beneath everyday life. Its drama grows from domestic choices, social expectations, and the emotional bonds that both protect and constrain its characters. This is a warm yet serious story for readers who enjoy family secrets, moral tension, and heartfelt growth.
Historical
The Mayor of Casterbridge
The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy is a deeply felt story of love, pride, loss, and difficult decisions. Set against a vivid social landscape, it follows people whose private hopes collide with duty, class, family, and fate. Readers who enjoy intense emotion, moral conflict, and relationships shaped by consequence will find a dramatic and absorbing novel.
Women's Fiction
The New Machiavelli
The New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Historical
The Hand of Ethelberta
The Hand of Ethelberta by Thomas Hardy is a deeply felt story of love, pride, loss, and difficult decisions. Set against a vivid social landscape, it follows people whose private hopes collide with duty, class, family, and fate. Readers who enjoy intense emotion, moral conflict, and relationships shaped by consequence will find a dramatic and absorbing novel.
Women's Fiction
The Pretty Lady
The Pretty Lady by Arnold Bennett centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Women's Fiction
The Quiet Heart
The Quiet Heart by Margaret Oliphant explores family loyalty, marriage, duty, and the private sacrifices hidden beneath everyday life. Its drama grows from domestic choices, social expectations, and the emotional bonds that both protect and constrain its characters. This is a warm yet serious story for readers who enjoy family secrets, moral tension, and heartfelt growth.
Mystery & Suspense
The Romance of the Forest
The Romance of the Forest by Ann Radcliffe draws readers into a shadowed world of secrets, forbidden rooms, dangerous loyalties, and emotions that refuse to stay buried. Its atmosphere is tense and romantic, with mystery pressing against every private choice. Readers who enjoy old houses, moral danger, hidden identities, and love tested by fear will find a richly dramatic story shaped by suspense and longing.
Women's Fiction
The Three Sisters
The Three Sisters by May Sinclair centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Women's Fiction
The Trumpet-Major
The Trumpet-Major by Thomas Hardy is a deeply felt story of love, pride, loss, and difficult decisions. Set against a vivid social landscape, it follows people whose private hopes collide with duty, class, family, and fate. Readers who enjoy intense emotion, moral conflict, and relationships shaped by consequence will find a dramatic and absorbing novel.
Women's Fiction
The Unlit Lamp
The Unlit Lamp by Radclyffe Hall centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Women's Fiction
The Wanderer
The Wanderer by Frances Burney follows characters navigating reputation, money, family pressure, and the quiet rules of society. Behind polished drawing rooms and respectable choices, private desire and ambition create conflicts that can change a life. This is a layered story for readers who enjoy inheritance, marriage, social expectation, and emotional decisions with lasting consequences.
Women's Fiction
The Perpetual Curate
The Perpetual Curate by Margaret Oliphant explores family loyalty, marriage, duty, and the private sacrifices hidden beneath everyday life. Its drama grows from domestic choices, social expectations, and the emotional bonds that both protect and constrain its characters. This is a warm yet serious story for readers who enjoy family secrets, moral tension, and heartfelt growth.
Women's Fiction
These Twain
These Twain by Arnold Bennett centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Women's Fiction
Two on a Tower
Two on a Tower by Thomas Hardy is a deeply felt story of love, pride, loss, and difficult decisions. Set against a vivid social landscape, it follows people whose private hopes collide with duty, class, family, and fate. Readers who enjoy intense emotion, moral conflict, and relationships shaped by consequence will find a dramatic and absorbing novel.
Women's Fiction
The Wing of Azrael
The Wing of Azrael by Mona Caird centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Women's Fiction
The Small House at Allington
The Small House at Allington by Anthony Trollope follows characters navigating reputation, money, family pressure, and the quiet rules of society. Behind polished drawing rooms and respectable choices, private desire and ambition create conflicts that can change a life. This is a layered story for readers who enjoy inheritance, marriage, social expectation, and emotional decisions with lasting consequences.
Historical
The Woodlanders
The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy is a deeply felt story of love, pride, loss, and difficult decisions. Set against a vivid social landscape, it follows people whose private hopes collide with duty, class, family, and fate. Readers who enjoy intense emotion, moral conflict, and relationships shaped by consequence will find a dramatic and absorbing novel.
Historical
A Pair of Blue Eyes
A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy is a deeply felt story of love, pride, loss, and difficult decisions. Set against a vivid social landscape, it follows people whose private hopes collide with duty, class, family, and fate. Readers who enjoy intense emotion, moral conflict, and relationships shaped by consequence will find a dramatic and absorbing novel.
Women's Fiction
A Romance of the Moors
A Romance of the Moors by Mona Caird centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Mystery & Suspense
A Sicilian Romance
A Sicilian Romance by Ann Radcliffe draws readers into a shadowed world of secrets, forbidden rooms, dangerous loyalties, and emotions that refuse to stay buried. Its atmosphere is tense and romantic, with mystery pressing against every private choice. Readers who enjoy old houses, moral danger, hidden identities, and love tested by fear will find a richly dramatic story shaped by suspense and longing.
Women's Fiction
The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman
The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman by H. G. Wells centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Women's Fiction
Mary Olivier: A Life
Mary Olivier: A Life by May Sinclair centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Women's Fiction
Patronage
Patronage by Maria Edgeworth follows characters navigating reputation, money, family pressure, and the quiet rules of society. Behind polished drawing rooms and respectable choices, private desire and ambition create conflicts that can change a life. This is a layered story for readers who enjoy inheritance, marriage, social expectation, and emotional decisions with lasting consequences.
Women's Fiction
The Daughters of Danaus
The Daughters of Danaus by Mona Caird centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Women's Fiction
The Passionate Friends
The Passionate Friends by H. G. Wells centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Historical
The Return of the Native
The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy is a deeply felt story of love, pride, loss, and difficult decisions. Set against a vivid social landscape, it follows people whose private hopes collide with duty, class, family, and fate. Readers who enjoy intense emotion, moral conflict, and relationships shaped by consequence will find a dramatic and absorbing novel.
Women's Fiction
The Tree of Heaven
The Tree of Heaven by May Sinclair centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Women's Fiction
The Way We Live Now
The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope follows characters navigating reputation, money, family pressure, and the quiet rules of society. Behind polished drawing rooms and respectable choices, private desire and ambition create conflicts that can change a life. This is a layered story for readers who enjoy inheritance, marriage, social expectation, and emotional decisions with lasting consequences.
Women's Fiction
Rachel Ray
Rachel Ray by Anthony Trollope follows characters navigating reputation, money, family pressure, and the quiet rules of society. Behind polished drawing rooms and respectable choices, private desire and ambition create conflicts that can change a life. This is a layered story for readers who enjoy inheritance, marriage, social expectation, and emotional decisions with lasting consequences.
Women's Fiction
The Old Wives' Tale
The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Women's Fiction
The Young Stepmother
The Young Stepmother by Charlotte M. Yonge explores family loyalty, marriage, duty, and the private sacrifices hidden beneath everyday life. Its drama grows from domestic choices, social expectations, and the emotional bonds that both protect and constrain its characters. This is a warm yet serious story for readers who enjoy family secrets, moral tension, and heartfelt growth.
Women's Fiction
The Clever Woman of the Family
The Clever Woman of the Family by Charlotte M. Yonge explores family loyalty, marriage, duty, and the private sacrifices hidden beneath everyday life. Its drama grows from domestic choices, social expectations, and the emotional bonds that both protect and constrain its characters. This is a warm yet serious story for readers who enjoy family secrets, moral tension, and heartfelt growth.
Women's Fiction
Belinda
Belinda by Maria Edgeworth follows characters navigating reputation, money, family pressure, and the quiet rules of society. Behind polished drawing rooms and respectable choices, private desire and ambition create conflicts that can change a life. This is a layered story for readers who enjoy inheritance, marriage, social expectation, and emotional decisions with lasting consequences.
Women's Fiction
Clayhanger
Clayhanger by Arnold Bennett centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Women's Fiction
Framley Parsonage
Framley Parsonage by Anthony Trollope follows characters navigating reputation, money, family pressure, and the quiet rules of society. Behind polished drawing rooms and respectable choices, private desire and ambition create conflicts that can change a life. This is a layered story for readers who enjoy inheritance, marriage, social expectation, and emotional decisions with lasting consequences.
Women's Fiction
John Halifax, Gentleman
John Halifax, Gentleman by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik explores family loyalty, marriage, duty, and the private sacrifices hidden beneath everyday life. Its drama grows from domestic choices, social expectations, and the emotional bonds that both protect and constrain its characters. This is a warm yet serious story for readers who enjoy family secrets, moral tension, and heartfelt growth.
Women's Fiction
Leonora
Leonora by Arnold Bennett centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Women's Fiction
Red Pottage
Red Pottage by Mary Cholmondeley centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Women's Fiction
The Belfry
The Belfry by May Sinclair centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Women's Fiction
The Divine Fire
The Divine Fire by May Sinclair centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Mystery & Suspense
The Mysteries of Udolpho
The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe draws readers into a shadowed world of secrets, forbidden rooms, dangerous loyalties, and emotions that refuse to stay buried. Its atmosphere is tense and romantic, with mystery pressing against every private choice. Readers who enjoy old houses, moral danger, hidden identities, and love tested by fear will find a richly dramatic story shaped by suspense and longing.
Women's Fiction
The Well of Loneliness
The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Women's Fiction
The Woman's Kingdom
The Woman's Kingdom by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik explores family loyalty, marriage, duty, and the private sacrifices hidden beneath everyday life. Its drama grows from domestic choices, social expectations, and the emotional bonds that both protect and constrain its characters. This is a warm yet serious story for readers who enjoy family secrets, moral tension, and heartfelt growth.
Historical
Not Wisely, but Too Well
Not Wisely, but Too Well by Rhoda Broughton offers an emotional story of attraction, pride, misunderstanding, and the consequences of choosing with the heart. Its relationships unfold through social pressure and private longing, giving the novel a strong romantic pull. Readers who enjoy dramatic love stories, complicated heroines, and sharp turns of feeling will find it compelling.
Mystery & Suspense
The Eustace Diamonds
The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope follows characters navigating reputation, money, family pressure, and the quiet rules of society. Behind polished drawing rooms and respectable choices, private desire and ambition create conflicts that can change a life. This is a layered story for readers who enjoy inheritance, marriage, social expectation, and emotional decisions with lasting consequences.
Women's Fiction
The History of Mr. Polly
The History of Mr. Polly by H. G. Wells centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Mystery & Suspense
The Last Man
The Last Man by Mary Shelley draws readers into a shadowed world of secrets, forbidden rooms, dangerous loyalties, and emotions that refuse to stay buried. Its atmosphere is tense and romantic, with mystery pressing against every private choice. Readers who enjoy old houses, moral danger, hidden identities, and love tested by fear will find a richly dramatic story shaped by suspense and longing.
Women's Fiction
The White Peacock
The White Peacock by D. H. Lawrence centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Women's Fiction
Evelina
Evelina by Frances Burney follows characters navigating reputation, money, family pressure, and the quiet rules of society. Behind polished drawing rooms and respectable choices, private desire and ambition create conflicts that can change a life. This is a layered story for readers who enjoy inheritance, marriage, social expectation, and emotional decisions with lasting consequences.
Women's Fiction
Adam's Breed
Adam's Breed by Radclyffe Hall centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Women's Fiction
Ann Veronica
Ann Veronica by H. G. Wells centers on intimate choices, social pressure, and the search for a freer life. Its characters face love, duty, ambition, and the expectations placed on women, often discovering that independence has a cost. The story suits readers who enjoy emotional growth, complicated relationships, and thoughtful drama with a strong inner life.
Historical
Far from the Madding Crowd
Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy is a deeply felt story of love, pride, loss, and difficult decisions. Set against a vivid social landscape, it follows people whose private hopes collide with duty, class, family, and fate. Readers who enjoy intense emotion, moral conflict, and relationships shaped by consequence will find a dramatic and absorbing novel.
Women's Fiction
Helen
Helen by Maria Edgeworth follows characters navigating reputation, money, family pressure, and the quiet rules of society. Behind polished drawing rooms and respectable choices, private desire and ambition create conflicts that can change a life. This is a layered story for readers who enjoy inheritance, marriage, social expectation, and emotional decisions with lasting consequences.
Women's Fiction
Miss Marjoribanks
Miss Marjoribanks by Margaret Oliphant explores family loyalty, marriage, duty, and the private sacrifices hidden beneath everyday life. Its drama grows from domestic choices, social expectations, and the emotional bonds that both protect and constrain its characters. This is a warm yet serious story for readers who enjoy family secrets, moral tension, and heartfelt growth.
Mystery & Suspense
Murder at the Vicarage
It is difficult to know quite where to begin this story, but I have fixed my choice on a certain Wednesday at luncheon at the Vicarage. The conversation, though in the main irrelevant to the matter in hand, yet contained one or two suggestive incidents which influenced later developments. I had just finished carving some boiled beef (remarkably tough by the way), and on resuming my seat I remarked, in a spirit most u
Women's Fiction
The Home-Maker
I She was scrubbing furiously at a line of grease spots which led from the stove towards the door to the dining-room. That was where Henry had held the platter tilted as he carried the steak in yesterday. And yet if she had warned him once about that, she had a thousand times! Warned him, and begged of him, and implored him to be careful. The children simply paid no attention to what she said. None. She might as well
Women's Fiction
The Brimming Cup
_PRELUDE_ SUNSET ON ROCCA DI PAPA _An Hour in the Life of Two Modern Young People_ April, 1909. Lounging idly in the deserted little waiting-room was the usual shabby, bored, lonely ticket-seller, prodigiously indifferent to the grave beauty of the scene before him and to the throng of ancient memories jostling him where he stood. Without troubling to look at his watch, he informed the two young foreigners that they
Women's Fiction
The Heart of Rachael
The day had opened so brightly, in such a welcome wave of April sunshine, that by mid-afternoon there were two hundred players scattered over the links of the Long Island Country Club at Belvedere Bay; the men in thick plaid stockings and loose striped sweaters, the women's scarlet coats and white skirts making splashes of vivid color against the fresh green of grass and the thick powdering of dandelions. It was Satu
Women's Fiction
Harriet and the Piper
Richard Carter had called the place "Crownlands," not to please himself, or even his wife. But it was to his mother's newly born family pride that the idea of being the Carters of Crownlands made its appeal. The estate, when he bought it, had belonged to a Carter, and the tradition was that two hundred years before it had been a grant of the first George to the first of the name in America. Madame Carter, as the old
Women's Fiction
Martie, the Unconquered
At about four o'clock on a windy, warm September afternoon, four girls came out of the post-office of Monroe, California. They had loitered on their way in, consciously wasting time; they had spent fifteen minutes in the dark and dirty room upon an absolutely unnecessary errand, and now they sauntered forth into the village street keenly aware that the afternoon was not yet waning, and disheartened by the slow passag
Women's Fiction
The Story of Julia Page
To Emeline, wife of George Page, there came slowly, in her thirtieth year, a sullen conviction that life was monstrously unfair. From a resentful realization that she was not happy in her marriage, Emeline's mind went back to the days of her pert, precocious childhood and her restless and discontented girlhood, and she felt, with a sort of smouldering fury, that she had never been happy, had never had a fair chance,
Women's Fiction
Saturday's Child
Not the place in which to look for the Great Adventure, the dingy, narrow office on the mezzanine floor of Hunter, Baxter & Hunter's great wholesale drug establishment, in San Francisco city, at the beginning of the present century. Nothing could have seemed more monotonous, more grimy, less interesting, to the outsider's eye at least, than life as it presented itself to the twelve women who were employed in bookkeep
Women's Fiction
The Beloved Woman
For forty-eight hours the snow-storm had been raging unabated over New York. After a wild and windy Thursday night the world had awakened to a mysterious whirl of white on Friday morning, and to a dark, strange day of steady snowing. Now, on Saturday, dirty snow was banked and heaped in great blocks everywhere, and still the clean, new flakes fluttered and twirled softly down, powdering and feathering every little le
Women's Fiction
Sisters
Cherry Strickland came in the door of the Strickland house, and shut it behind her, and stood so, with her hands behind her on the knob, and her slender body leaning forward, and her breath rising and falling on deep, ecstatic breaths. It was May in California, she was just eighteen, and for twenty-one minutes she had been engaged to be married. She hardly knew why, after that last farewell to Martin, she had run so
Women's Fiction
The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne
"Annie, what are you doing? Polishing the ramekins? Oh, that's right. Did the extra ramekins come from Mrs. Brown? Didn't! Then as soon as the children come back I'll send for them; I wish you'd remind me. Did Mrs. Binney come? and Lizzie? Oh, that's good. Where are they? Down in the cellar! Oh, did the extra ice come? Will you find out, Annie? Those can wait. If it didn't, the mousse is ruined, that's all! No, wait,
Women's Fiction
Mother: A Story
"Well, we couldn't have much worse weather than this for the last week of school, could we?" Margaret Paget said in discouragement. She stood at one of the school windows, her hands thrust deep in her coat pockets for warmth, her eyes following the whirling course of the storm that howled outside. The day had commenced with snow, but now, at twelve o'clock, the rain was falling in sheets, and the barren schoolhouse y
Women's Fiction
The Mother's Recompense
BOOK I. THE MOTHER’S RECOMPENSE I. Kate Clephane was wakened, as usual, by the slant of Riviera sun across her bed. It was the thing she liked best about her shabby cramped room in the third-rate Hôtel de Minorque et de l’Univers: that the morning sun came in at her window, and yet that it didn’t come too early. No more sunrises for Kate Clephane. They were associated with too many lost joys--coming home from balls w
Women's Fiction
Twilight Sleep
CHAPTER X BOOK II CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XIV CHAPTER XV CHAPTER XVI CHAPTER XVII CHAPTER XVIII CHAPTER XIX BOOK III CHAPTER XX CHAPTER XXI CHAPTER XXII CHAPTER XXIII CHAPTER XXIV CHAPTER XXV CHAPTER XXVI CHAPTER XXVII CHAPTER XXVIII CHAPTER XXIX CHAPTER XXX CHAPTER XXXI CHAPTER XXXII _BOOK I_ I MISS BRUSS, the perfect secretary, received Nona Manford at the door of her mother's boudoir ("the offi
Women's Fiction
The Children
THE CHILDREN I As the big liner hung over the tugs swarming about her in the bay of Algiers, Martin Boyne looked down from the promenade deck on the troop of first-class passengers struggling up the gangway, their faces all unconsciously lifted to his inspection. “Not a soul I shall want to speak to—as usual!” Some men’s luck in travelling was inconceivable. They had only to get into a train or on board a boat to run
Historical
The Glimpses of the Moon
THE GLIMPSES OF THE MOON By Edith Wharton PART I I IT rose for them--their honey-moon--over the waters of a lake so famed as the scene of romantic raptures that they were rather proud of not having been afraid to choose it as the setting of their own. “It required a total lack of humour, or as great a gift for it as ours, to risk the experiment,” Susy Lansing opined, as they hung over the inevitable marble balustrade
Women's Fiction
The Reef
I “Unexpected obstacle. Please don’t come till thirtieth. Anna.” All the way from Charing Cross to Dover the train had hammered the words of the telegram into George Darrow’s ears, ringing every change of irony on its commonplace syllables: rattling them out like a discharge of musketry, letting them, one by one, drip slowly and coldly into his brain, or shaking, tossing, transposing them like the dice in some game o
Women's Fiction
Bunner Sisters
BUNNER SISTERS By Edith Wharton Scribner's Magazine 60 (Oct. 1916): 439-58; 60 (Nov. 1916): 575-96. PART I I In the days when New York's traffic moved at the pace of the drooping horse-car, when society applauded Christine Nilsson at the Academy of Music and basked in the sunsets of the Hudson River School on the walls of the National Academy of Design, an inconspicuous shop with a single show-window was intimately a
Women's Fiction
The Fruit of the Tree
BOOK I THE FRUIT OF THE TREE I IN the surgical ward of the Hope Hospital at Hanaford, a nurse was bending over a young man whose bandaged right hand and arm lay stretched along the bed. His head stirred uneasily, and slipping her arm behind him she effected a professional readjustment of the pillows. "Is that better?" As she leaned over, he lifted his anxious bewildered eyes, deep-sunk under ridges of suffering. "I d
Women's Fiction
Dangerous Ages
NEVILLE'S BIRTHDAY 1 Neville, at five o'clock (Nature's time, not man's) on the morning of her birthday, woke from the dream-broken sleep of summer dawns, hot with the burden of two sheets and a blanket, roused by the multitudinous silver calling of a world full of birds. They chattered and bickered about the creepered house, shrill and sweet, like a hundred brooks running together down steep rocky places after snow.
Women's Fiction
Told by an Idiot
PART I. VICTORIAN PART II. FIN-DE-SIÈCLE. PART III. EDWARDIAN. PART IV. GEORGIAN. First Period: Circus. Second Period: Smash. Third Period: Débris. Generationi Patrum. PART I VICTORIAN TOLD BY AN IDIOT A FAMILY AT HOME ONE evening, shortly before Christmas, in the days when our forefathers, being young, possessed the earth--in brief, in the year 1879--Mrs. Garden came briskly into the drawing-room from Mr. Garden’s s
Women's Fiction
The Judge
BOOK ONE "Every mother is a judge who sentences the children for the sins of the father." CHAPTER I I It was not because life was not good enough that Ellen Melville was crying as she sat by the window. The world, indeed, even so much of it as could be seen from her window, was extravagantly beautiful. The office of Mr. Mactavish James, Writer to the Signet, was in one of those decent grey streets that lie high on th
Historical
The Return of the Soldier
"Ah, don't begin to fuss!" wailed Kitty. "If a woman began to worry in these days because her husband hadn't written to her for a fortnight! Besides, if he'd been anywhere interesting, anywhere where the fighting was really hot, he'd have found some way of telling me instead of just leaving it as 'Somewhere in France.' He'll be all right." We were sitting in the nursery. I had not meant to enter it again, now that th
Women's Fiction
Work: A Story of Experience
CHRISTIE. [Illustration: CHRISTIE.] “Aunt Betsey, there’s going to be a new Declaration of Independence.” “Bless and save us, what do you mean, child?” And the startled old lady precipitated a pie into the oven with destructive haste. “I mean that, being of age, I’m going to take care of myself, and not be a burden any longer. Uncle wishes me out of the way; thinks I ought to go, and, sooner or later, will tell me so
Dark Romance
Behind a Mask; or, a Woman's Power
_Chapter I_ JEAN MUIR “Has she come?” “No, Mamma, not yet.” “I wish it were well over. The thought of it worries and excites me. A cushion for my back, Bella.” And poor, peevish Mrs. Coventry sank into an easy chair with a nervous sigh and the air of a martyr, while her pretty daughter hovered about her with affectionate solicitude. “Who are they talking of, Lucia?” asked the languid young man lounging on a couch nea
Women's Fiction
Moods
IN A YEAR. The room fronted the west, but a black cloud, barred with red, robbed the hour of twilight's tranquil charm. Shadows haunted it, lurking in corners like spies set there to watch the man who stood among them mute and motionless as if himself a shadow. His eye turned often to the window with a glance both vigilant and eager, yet saw nothing but a tropical luxuriance of foliage scarcely stirred by the sultry
Women's Fiction
Mary Barton
A MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE. Oh! 'tis hard, 'tis hard to be working The whole of the live-long day, When all the neighbours about one Are off to their jaunts and play. There's Richard he carries his baby, And Mary takes little Jane, And lovingly they'll be wandering Through field and briery lane. MANCHESTER SONG. There are some fields near Manchester, well known to the inhabitants as "Green Heys Fields," through which
Historical
Sylvia's Lovers
CHAPTER I MONKSHAVEN On the north-eastern shores of England there is a town called Monkshaven, containing at the present day about fifteen thousand inhabitants. There were, however, but half the number at the end of the last century, and it was at that period that the events narrated in the following pages occurred. Monkshaven was a name not unknown in the history of England, and traditions of its having been the lan
Women's Fiction
Cousin Phillis
It is a great thing for a lad when he is first turned into the independence of lodgings. I do not think I ever was so satisfied and proud in my life as when, at seventeen, I sate down in a little three-cornered room above a pastry-cook’s shop in the county town of Eltham. My father had left me that afternoon, after delivering himself of a few plain precepts, strongly expressed, for my guidance in the new course of li
Women's Fiction
My Lady Ludlow
I am an old woman now, and things are very different to what they were in my youth. Then we, who travelled, travelled in coaches, carrying six inside, and making a two days’ journey out of what people now go over in a couple of hours with a whizz and a flash, and a screaming whistle, enough to deafen one. Then letters came in but three times a week: indeed, in some places in Scotland where I have stayed when I was a
Historical
The Amazing Interlude
I The stage on which we play our little dramas of life and love has for most of us but one setting. It is furnished out with approximately the same things. Characters come, move about and make their final exits through long-familiar doors. And the back drop remains approximately the same from beginning to end. Palace or hovel, forest or sea, it is the background for the moving figures of the play. So Sara Lee Kennedy
Historical
The Street of Seven Stars
CHAPTER I The old stucco house sat back in a garden, or what must once have been a garden, when that part of the Austrian city had been a royal game preserve. Tradition had it that the Empress Maria Theresa had used the building as a hunting-lodge, and undoubtedly there was something royal in the proportions of the salon. With all the candles lighted in the great glass chandelier, and no sidelights, so that the broke
Mystery & Suspense
The Case of Jennie Brice
We have just had another flood, bad enough, but only a foot or two of water on the first floor. Yesterday we got the mud shoveled out of the cellar and found Peter, the spaniel that Mr. Ladley left when he "went away". The flood, and the fact that it was Mr. Ladley's dog whose body was found half buried in the basement fruit closet, brought back to me the strange events of the other flood five years ago, when the wat
Mystery & Suspense
The Confession
THE CONFESSION By Mary Roberts Rinehart I I am not a susceptible woman. I am objective rather than subjective, and a fairly full experience of life has taught me that most of my impressions are from within out rather than the other way about. For instance, obsession at one time a few years ago of a shadowy figure on my right, just beyond the field of vision, was later exposed as the result of a defect in my glasses.
Mystery & Suspense
The Woman in the Alcove
The Woman in the Alcove By Anna Katharine Green I was not made for love. This I had often said to myself; very often of late. In figure I am too diminutive, in face far too unbeautiful, for me to cherish expectations of this nature. Indeed, love had never entered into my plan of life, as was evinced by the nurse’s diploma I had just gained after three years of hard study and severe training. I was not made for love.
Mystery & Suspense
The Murder on the Links
1 A Fellow Traveller I believe that a well-known anecdote exists to the effect that a young writer, determined to make the commencement of his story forcible and original enough to catch and rivet the attention of the most blasé of editors, penned the following sentence: “‘Hell!’ said the Duchess.” Strangely enough, this tale of mine opens in much the same fashion. Only the lady who gave utterance to the exclamation
Mystery & Suspense
Poirot Investigates
I The Adventure of “The Western Star” I was standing at the window of Poirot’s rooms looking out idly on the street below. “That’s queer,” I ejaculated suddenly beneath my breath. “What is, _mon ami_?” asked Poirot placidly, from the depths of his comfortable chair. “Deduce, Poirot, from the following facts! Here is a young lady, richly dressed—fashionable hat, magnificent furs. She is coming along slowly, looking up
Mystery & Suspense
The Man in the Brown Suit
PROLOGUE Nadina, the Russian dancer who had taken Paris by storm, swayed to the sound of the applause, bowed and bowed again. Her narrow black eyes narrowed themselves still more, the long line of her scarlet mouth curved faintly upwards. Enthusiastic Frenchmen continued to beat the ground appreciatively as the curtain fell with a swish, hiding the reds and blues and magentas of the bizarre _décors._ In a swirl of bl
Mystery & Suspense
The Mystery of the Blue Train
1. The Man with the White Hair It was close on midnight when a man crossed the Place de la Concorde. In spite of the handsome fur coat which garbed his meagre form, there was something essentially weak and paltry about him. A little man with a face like a rat. A man, one would say, who could never play a conspicuous part, or rise to prominence in any sphere. And yet, in leaping to such a conclusion, an onlooker would
Mystery & Suspense
The Secret of Chimneys
1 Anthony Cade Signs on “Gentleman Joe!” “Why, if it isn’t old Jimmy McGrath.” Castle’s Select Tour, represented by seven depressed-looking females and three perspiring males, looked on with considerable interest. Evidently their Mr. Cade had met an old friend. They all admired Mr. Cade so much, his tall lean figure, his sun-tanned face, the light-hearted manner with which he settled disputes and cajoled them all int
Mystery & Suspense
The Seven Dials Mystery
ON EARLY RISING That amiable youth, Jimmy Thesiger, came racing down the big staircase at Chimneys two steps at a time. So precipitate was his descent that he collided with Tredwell, the stately butler, just as the latter was crossing the hall bearing a fresh supply of hot coffee. Owing to the marvellous presence of mind and masterly agility of Tredwell, no casualty occurred. "Sorry," apologized Jimmy. "I say, Tredwe
Mystery & Suspense
The Mysterious Mr Quin
THE COMING OF MR. QUIN It was New Year's Eve. The elder members of the house party at Royston were assembled in the big hall. Mr. Satterthwaite was glad that the young people had gone to bed. He was not fond of young people in herds. He thought them uninteresting and crude. They lacked subtlety and as life went on he had become increasingly fond of subtleties. Mr. Satterthwaite was sixty-two--a little bent, dried-up
Mystery & Suspense
Partners in Crime
A FAIRY IN THE FLAT Mrs. Thomas Beresford shifted her position on the divan and looked gloomily out of the window of the flat. The prospect was not an extended one, consisting solely of a small block of flats on the other side of the road. Mrs. Beresford sighed and then yawned. "I wish," she said, "something would happen." Her husband looked up reprovingly. "Be careful, Tuppence, this craving for vulgar sensation ala
Historical
Giants' Bread
GIANTS' BREAD Prologue It was the opening night of London's new National Opera House and consequently an occasion. Royalty was there. The Press were there. The fashionable were there in large quantities. Even the musical, by hook and by crook, had managed to be there--mostly very high up in the final tier of seats under the roof. The musical composition given was _The Giant_, a new work by a hitherto unknown composer
Mystery & Suspense
The Big Four
1. THE UNEXPECTED GUEST I have met people who enjoy a channel crossing; men who can sit calmly in their deck-chairs and, on arrival, wait until the boat is moored, then gather their belongings together without fuss and disembark. Personally, I can never manage this. From the moment I get on board I feel that the time is too short to settle down to anything. I move my suit-cases from one spot to another, and if I go d
Mystery & Suspense
The Breaking Point
THE BREAKING POINT By Mary Roberts Rinehart I “Heaven and earth,” sang the tenor, Mr. Henry Wallace, owner of the Wallace garage. His larynx, which gave him somewhat the effect of having swallowed a crab-apple and got it only part way down, protruded above his low collar. “Heaven and earth,” sang the bass, Mr. Edwin Goodno, of the meat market and the Boy Scouts. “Heaven and earth, are full--” His chin, large and fles
Women's Fiction
Dangerous Days
Natalie Spencer was giving a dinner. She was not an easy hostess. Like most women of futile lives she lacked a sense of proportion, and the small and unimportant details of the service absorbed her. Such conversation as she threw at random, to right and left, was trivial and distracted. Yet the dinner was an unimportant one. It had been given with an eye more to the menu than to the guest list, which was characterist
Mystery & Suspense
Where There's a Will
WHERE THERE'S A WILL By Mary Roberts Rinehart CHAPTER I I HAVE A WARNING When it was all over Mr. Sam came out to the spring-house to say good-by to me before he and Mrs. Sam left. I hated to see him go, after all we had been through together, and I suppose he saw it in my face, for he came over close and stood looking down at me, and smiling. "You saved us, Minnie," he said, "and I needn't tell you we're grateful; b
Women's Fiction
Tish
I So many unkind things have been said of the affair at Morris Valley that I think it best to publish a straightforward account of everything. The ill nature of the cartoon, for instance, which showed Tish in a pair of khaki trousers on her back under a racing-car was quite uncalled for. Tish did not wear the khaki trousers; she merely took them along in case of emergency. Nor was it true that Tish took Aggie along a
Historical
A Poor Wise Man
The city turned its dreariest aspect toward the railway on blackened walls, irregular and ill-paved streets, gloomy warehouses, and over all a gray, smoke-laden atmosphere which gave it mystery and often beauty. Sometimes the softened towers of the great steel bridges rose above the river mist like fairy towers suspended between Heaven and earth. And again the sun tipped the surrounding hills with gold, while the cit
Women's Fiction
When a Man Marries
When the dreadful thing occurred that night, every one turned on me. The injustice of it hurt me most. They said I got up the dinner, that I asked them to give up other engagements and come, that I promised all kinds of jollification, if they would come; and then when they did come and got in the papers and every one--but ourselves--laughed himself black in the face, they turned on ME! I, who suffered ten times to th
Mystery & Suspense
The After House
I PLAN A VOYAGE By the bequest of an elder brother, I was left enough money to see me through a small college in Ohio, and to secure me four years in a medical school in the East. Why I chose medicine I hardly know. Possibly the career of a surgeon attracted the adventurous element in me. Perhaps, coming of a family of doctors, I merely followed the line of least resistance. It may be, indirectly but inevitably, that
Mystery & Suspense
K
The Street stretched away north and south in two lines of ancient houses that seemed to meet in the distance. The man found it infinitely inviting. It had the well-worn look of an old coat, shabby but comfortable. The thought of coming there to live pleased him. Surely here would be peace--long evenings in which to read, quiet nights in which to sleep and forget. It was an impression of home, really, that it gave. Th
Mystery & Suspense
Sight Unseen
SIGHT UNSEEN By Mary Roberts Rinehart I The rather extraordinary story revealed by the experiments of the Neighborhood Club have been until now a matter only of private record. But it seems to me, as an active participant in the investigations, that they should be given to the public; not so much for what they will add to the existing data on psychical research, for from that angle they were not unusual, but as yet a
Mystery & Suspense
The Window at the White Cat
SENTIMENT AND CLUES In my criminal work anything that wears skirts is a lady, until the law proves her otherwise. From the frayed and slovenly petticoats of the woman who owns a poultry stand in the market and who has grown wealthy by selling chickens at twelve ounces to the pound, or the silk sweep of Mamie Tracy, whose diamonds have been stolen down on the avenue, or the staidly respectable black and middle-aged sk
Women's Fiction
More Tish
THE CAVE ON THUNDER CLOUD I It is doubtful if Aggie and I would have known anything about Tish’s plan had Aggie not seen the advertisement in the newspaper. She came to my house at once in violent excitement and with her bonnet over her ear, and gave me the newspaper clipping to read. It said: “WANTED: A small donkey. Must be gentle, female, and if possible answer to the name of Modestine. Address X 27, Morning News.
Mystery & Suspense
The Forsaken Inn
CHAPTER I. THE OAK PARLOR. [Illustration: I] I was riding between Albany and Poughkeepsie. It was raining furiously, and my horse, already weary with long travel, gave unmistakable signs of discouragement. I was, therefore, greatly relieved when, in the most desolate part of the road, I espied rising before me the dim outlines of a house, and was correspondingly disappointed when, upon riding forward, I perceived tha
Mystery & Suspense
Hand and Ring
BOOK I. THE GENTLEMAN FROM TOLEDO. I. A STARTLING COINCIDENCE. By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes. --MACBETH. THE town clock of Sibley had just struck twelve. Court had adjourned, and Judge Evans, with one or two of the leading lawyers of the county, stood in the door-way of the court-house discussing in a friendly way the eccentricities of criminals as developed in the case then before the
Mystery & Suspense
A Strange Disappearance
“Talking of sudden disappearances the one you mention of Hannah in that Leavenworth case of ours, is not the only remarkable one which has come under my direct notice. Indeed, I know of another that in some respects, at least, surpasses that in points of interest, and if you will promise not to inquire into the real names of the parties concerned, as the affair is a secret, I will relate you my experience regarding i
Mystery & Suspense
The Sword of Damocles
Damocles, one of the courtiers of Dionysius, was perpetually extolling with rapture that tyrant’s treasures, grandeur, the number of his troops, the extent of his dominions, the magnificence of his palaces, and the universal abundance of all good things and enjoyments in his possession; always repeating, that never man was happier than Dionysius. “Since you are of that opinion,” said the tyrant to him one day, “will
Mystery & Suspense
Initials Only
I. POINSETTIAS “A remarkable man!” It was not my husband speaking, but some passerby. However, I looked up at George with a smile, and found him looking down at me with much the same humour. We had often spoken of the odd phrases one hears in the street, and how interesting it would be sometimes to hear a little more of the conversation. “That’s a case in point,” he laughed, as he guided me through the crowd of theat
Mystery & Suspense
The Golden Slipper
PROBLEM I THE GOLDEN SLIPPER “She’s here! I thought she would be. She’s one of the three young ladies you see in the right-hand box near the proscenium.” The gentleman thus addressed--a man of middle age and a member of the most exclusive clubs--turned his opera glass toward the spot designated, and in some astonishment retorted: “She? Why those are the Misses Pratt and--” “Miss Violet Strange; no other.” “And do you
Mystery & Suspense
The Mayor's Wife
THE MAYOR’S WIFE by Anna Katherine Green CHAPTER I. A SPY’S DUTY I am not without self-control, yet when Miss Davies entered the room with that air of importance she invariably assumes when she has an unusually fine position to offer, I could not hide all traces of my anxiety. I needed a position, needed it badly, while the others-- But her eyes are on our faces, she is scanning us all with that close and calculating
Mystery & Suspense
The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow
A PROBLEM OF THE FIRST ORDER I "LET SOME ONE SPEAK!" The hour of noon had just struck, and the few visitors still lingering among the curiosities of the great museum were suddenly startled by the sight of one of the attendants running down the broad, central staircase, loudly shouting: "Close the doors! Let no one out! An accident has occurred, and nobody's to leave the building." There was but one person near either
Mystery & Suspense
Agatha Webb
THE PURPLE ORCHID I A CRY ON THE HILL The dance was over. From the great house on the hill the guests had all departed and only the musicians remained. As they filed out through the ample doorway, on their way home, the first faint streak of early dawn became visible in the east. One of them, a lank, plain-featured young man of ungainly aspect but penetrating eye, called the attention of the others to it. "Look!" sai
Mystery & Suspense
The Chief Legatee
PART I A Woman of Mystery CHAPTER I A BRIDE OF FIVE HOURS "What's up?" This from the manager of the Hotel ---- to his chief clerk. "Something wrong in Room 81?" "Yes, sir. I've just sent for a detective. You were not to be found and the gentleman is desperate. But very anxious to have it all kept quiet; very anxious. I think we can oblige him there, or, at least, we'll try. Am I right, sir?" "Of course, if--" "Oh! it
Mystery & Suspense
Dark Hollow
THE WOMAN IN PURPLE I WHERE IS BELA? A high and narrow gate of carefully joined boards, standing ajar in a fence of the same construction! What is there in this to rouse a whole neighbourhood and collect before it a group of eager, anxious, hesitating people? I will tell you. This fence is no ordinary fence, and this gate no ordinary gate; nor is the fact of the latter standing a trifle open, one to be lightly regard
Mystery & Suspense
The Millionaire Baby
I TWO LITTLE SHOES The morning of August eighteenth, 190-, was a memorable one to me. For two months I had had a run of bad luck. During that time I had failed to score in at least three affairs of unusual importance, and the result was a decided loss in repute as well as great financial embarrassment. As I had a mother and two sisters to support and knew but one way to do it, I was in a state of profound discouragem
Mystery & Suspense
The Mill Mystery
I. THE ALARM. Life, struck sharp on death, Makes awful lightning. --MRS. BROWNING. I had just come in from the street. I had a letter in my hand. It was for my fellow-lodger, a young girl who taught in the High School, and whom I had persuaded to share my room because of her pretty face and quiet ways. She was not at home, and I flung the letter down on the table, where it fell, address downwards. I thought no more o
Mystery & Suspense
One of My Sons
BOOK I THE SHADOW I THE CHILD, AND WHAT SHE LED ME INTO I was walking at a rapid pace up the avenue one raw, fall evening, when somewhere near the corner of Fifty----Street I was brought to a sudden stand-still by the sound of a child's voice accosting me from the stoop of one of the handsome houses I was then passing. "O sir!" it cried, "please come in. Please come to grandpa. He's sick and wants you." Surprised, fo
Women's Fiction
Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby
I "You and I have been married nearly seven years," Margaret Kirby reflected bitterly, "and I suppose we are as near hating each other as two civilized people ever were!" She did not say it aloud. The Kirbys had long ago given up any discussion of their attitude to each other. But as the thought came into her mind she eyed her husband--lounging moodily in her motor-car, as they swept home through the winter twilight-
Women's Fiction
The Treasure
Lizzie, who happened to be the Salisbury's one servant at the time, was wasteful. It was almost her only fault, in Mrs. Salisbury's eyes, for such trifles as her habit of becoming excited and "saucy," in moments of domestic stress, or to ask boldly for other holidays than her alternate Sunday and Thursday afternoons, or to resent at all times the intrusion of any person, even her mistress, into her immaculate kitchen
Women's Fiction
Undertow
The marriage of Albert Bradley and Anne Polk Barrett was as close as anything comes, in these prosaic days, to a high adventure. Nancy's Uncle Thomas, a quiet, gentle old Southerner who wore tan linen suits when he came to New York, which was not often, and Bert's mother, a tiny Boston woman who had lived in a diminutive Brookline apartment since her three sons had struck out into the world for themselves, respective
Women's Fiction
The Black Flemings
Once through the dark old iron gates, he seemed to have left the warm and friendly autumn day, the warm and friendly world, behind him. David Fleming laughed half aloud at the fancy and stepped back into the rambling country road, where wheel tracks were so quickly obliterated in the loose-drifting sand, to contrast once more, for his own amusement, the peaceful dreaming landscape in the afternoon sunlight and the si
Women's Fiction
The Squirrel-Cage
AN AMERICAN FAMILY The house of the Emery family was a singularly good example of the capacity of wood and plaster and brick to acquire personality. It was the physical symbol of its owners' position in life; it was the history of their career, written down for all to see, and as such they felt in it the most justifiable pride. When Mr. and Mrs. Emery, directly after their wedding in a small Central New York village,
Women's Fiction
The Bent Twig
BOOK I _IN ARCADIA_ CHAPTER I SYLVIA'S HOME Like most happy childhoods, Sylvia's early years lay back of her in a long, cheerful procession of featureless days, the outlines of which were blurred into one shimmering glow by the very radiance of their sunshine. Here and there she remembered patches, sensations, pictures, scents: Mother holding baby sister up for her to kiss, and the fragrance of the baby powder--the p
Women's Fiction
Rough-Hewn
In the spring of 1893 Strindberg had just published "A Fool's Confession," D'Annunzio was employing all the multicolored glory of his style to prove "The Triumph of Death"; Hardy was somberly mixing on his palette the twilight grays and blacks and mourning purples of "Jude the Obscure"; Nordau, gnashing his teeth, was bellowing "Decadent" at his contemporaries who smirked a complacent acceptance of the epithet ... an
Historical
The Valley of Decision
THE OLD ORDER. Prima che incontro alla festosa fronte I lugubri suoi lampi il ver baleni. 1.1. It was very still in the small neglected chapel. The noises of the farm came faintly through closed doors--voices shouting at the oxen in the lower fields, the querulous bark of the old house-dog, and Filomena's angry calls to the little white-faced foundling in the kitchen. The February day was closing, and a ray of sunshi
Women's Fiction
The Touchstone
THE TOUCHSTONE By Edith Wharton I “Professor Joslin, who, as our readers are doubtless aware, is engaged in writing the life of Mrs. Aubyn, asks us to state that he will be greatly indebted to any of the famous novelist’s friends who will furnish him with information concerning the period previous to her coming to England. Mrs. Aubyn had so few intimate friends, and consequently so few regular correspondents, that le
Women's Fiction
Sanctuary
PART I It is not often that youth allows itself to feel undividedly happy: the sensation is too much the result of selection and elimination to be within reach of the awakening clutch on life. But Kate Orme, for once, had yielded herself to happiness; letting it permeate every faculty as a spring rain soaks into a germinating meadow. There was nothing to account for this sudden sense of beatitude; but was it not this
Women's Fiction
Little Men
“Please, sir, is this Plumfield?” asked a ragged boy of the man who opened the great gate at which the omnibus left him. “Yes. Who sent you?” “Mr. Laurence. I have got a letter for the lady.” “All right; go up to the house, and give it to her; she'll see to you, little chap.” The man spoke pleasantly, and the boy went on, feeling much cheered by the words. Through the soft spring rain that fell on sprouting grass and
Women's Fiction
Jo's Boys
'If anyone had told me what wonderful changes were to take place here in ten years, I wouldn't have believed it,' said Mrs Jo to Mrs Meg, as they sat on the piazza at Plumfield one summer day, looking about them with faces full of pride and pleasure. 'This is the sort of magic that money and kind hearts can work. I am sure Mr Laurence could have no nobler monument than the college he so generously endowed; and a home
Women's Fiction
Eight Cousins
Rose sat all alone in the big best parlor, with her little handkerchief laid ready to catch the first tear, for she was thinking of her troubles, and a shower was expected. She had retired to this room as a good place in which to be miserable; for it was dark and still, full of ancient furniture, sombre curtains, and hung all around with portraits of solemn old gentlemen in wigs, severe-nosed ladies in top-heavy caps
Dark Romance
A Modern Mephistopheles
“_The Indescribable, Here it is done: The Woman-Soul leadeth us Upward and on!_” Second Part of FAUST. A MODERN MEPHISTOPHELES. I. Without, a midwinter twilight, where wandering snowflakes eddied in the bitter wind between a leaden sky and frost-bound earth. Within, a garret; gloomy, bare, and cold as the bleak night coming down. A haggard youth knelt before a little furnace, kindling a fire, with an expression of qu
Dark Romance
Pauline's Passion and Punishment
Chapter I To and fro, like a wild creature in its cage, paced that handsome woman, with bent head, locked hands, and restless steps. Some mental storm, swift and sudden as a tempest of the tropics, had swept over her and left its marks behind. As if in anger at the beauty now proved powerless, all ornaments had been flung away, yet still it shone undimmed, and filled her with a passionate regret. A jewel glittered at
Women's Fiction
Under the Lilacs
A MYSTERIOUS DOG The elm-tree avenue was all overgrown, the great gate was never unlocked, and the old house had been shut up for several years. Yet voices were heard about the place, the lilacs nodded over the high wall as if they said, "We could tell fine secrets if we chose," and the mullein outside the gate made haste to reach the keyhole, that it might peep in and see what was going on. If it had suddenly grown
Women's Fiction
Jack and Jill
“Clear the lulla!” was the general cry on a bright December afternoon, when all the boys and girls of Harmony Village were out enjoying the first good snow of the season. Up and down three long coasts they went as fast as legs and sleds could carry them. One smooth path led into the meadow, and here the little folk congregated; one swept across the pond, where skaters were darting about like water-bugs; and the third
Mystery & Suspense
A Dark Night's Work
In the county town of a certain shire there lived (about forty years ago) one Mr. Wilkins, a conveyancing attorney of considerable standing. The certain shire was but a small county, and the principal town in it contained only about four thousand inhabitants; so in saying that Mr. Wilkins was the principal lawyer in Hamley, I say very little, unless I add that he transacted all the legal business of the gentry for tw
Women's Fiction
The Moorland Cottage
If you take the turn to the left, after you pass the lyke-gate at Combehurst Church, you will come to the wooden bridge over the brook; keep along the field-path which mounts higher and higher, and, in half a mile or so, you will be in a breezy upland field, almost large enough to be called a down, where sheep pasture on the short, fine, elastic turf. You look down on Combehurst and its beautiful church-spire. After
Mystery & Suspense
The Grey Woman and Other Tales
THE GREY WOMAN. PORTION I. There is a mill by the Neckar-side, to which many people resort for coffee, according to the fashion which is almost national in Germany. There is nothing particularly attractive in the situation of this mill; it is on the Mannheim (the flat and unromantic) side of Heidelberg. The river turns the mill-wheel with a plenteous gushing sound; the out-buildings and the dwelling-house of the mill
Women's Fiction
Half a Life-Time Ago
Half a life-time ago, there lived in one of the Westmoreland dales a single woman, of the name of Susan Dixon. She was owner of the small farm-house where she resided, and of some thirty or forty acres of land by which it was surrounded. She had also an hereditary right to a sheep-walk, extending to the wild fells that overhang Blea Tarn. In the language of the country she was a Stateswoman. Her house is yet to be se
Mystery & Suspense
The Poor Clare
THE POOR CLARE by Elizabeth Gaskell CHAPTER I. December 12th, 1747.—My life has been strangely bound up with extraordinary incidents, some of which occurred before I had any connection with the principal actors in them, or indeed, before I even knew of their existence. I suppose, most old men are, like me, more given to looking back upon their own career with a kind of fond interest and affectionate remembrance, than
Women's Fiction
Round the Sofa
ROUND THE SOFA. by Elizabeth Gaskell Long ago I was placed by my parents under the medical treatment of a certain Mr. Dawson, a surgeon in Edinburgh, who had obtained a reputation for the cure of a particular class of diseases. I was sent with my governess into lodgings near his house, in the Old Town. I was to combine lessons from the excellent Edinburgh masters, with the medicines and exercises needed for my indisp
Women's Fiction
Potterism
POTTERISM A TRAGI-FARCICAL TRACT BY ROSE MACAULAY Author of 'What Not,' etc. 1920 TO THE UNSENTIMENTAL PRECISIANS IN THOUGHT, WHO HAVE, ON THIS CONFUSED, INACCURATE, AND EMOTIONAL PLANET, NO FIT HABITATION 'They contract a Habit of talking loosely and confusedly.'--J. CLARKE. 'My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.... Don't _think_ foolishly.' SAMUEL JOHNSON. 'On the whole we are Not intelligent-- No, no, no, not i
Women's Fiction
What Not: A Prophetic Comedy
THE MINISTRY 1 After the Great War (but I do not say how long after), when the tumult and the shouting had died, and those who were left of the captains and the kings had gone either home or to those obscure abodes selected for them by their more successful fellows (to allay anxiety, I hasten to mention that three one-time Emperors were among those thus relegated to distance and obscurity), and humanity, released fro
Historical
Non-Combatants and Others
JOHN COMES HOME 1 In a green late April evening, among the dusky pine shadows, Alix drew Percival Briggs. Percival stood with his small cleft chin lifted truculently, small blue eyes deep under fair, frowning brows, one scratched brown leg bare to the knee, dirty hands thrust into torn pockets. He was the worst little boy in the wood, and had been till six months ago the worst little boy in the Sunday-school class of
Women's Fiction
The Lee Shore
A HEREDITARY BEQUEST During the first week of Peter Margerison's first term at school, Urquhart suddenly stepped, a radiant figure on the heroic scale, out of the kaleidoscopic maze of bemusing lights and colours that was Peter's vision of his new life. Peter, seeing Urquhart in authority on the football field, asked, "Who is it?" and was told, "Urquhart, of course," with the implication "Who else could it be?" "Oh,"
Women's Fiction
The Furnace
YOUTH IN THE CITY 'Val piu aver amici in piazza Che denari nella cassa.' _Proverb._ Royalty was arriving in the harbour in a steam-yacht. It had, that is, already arrived in the harbour; it was now disembarking on the pier. It was an interesting event. An edified crowd watched it; representatives of the Press jotted down their impressions; some took photographs. A few drew pictures instead. The representative of the
Women's Fiction
The Making of a Bigot
CAMBRIDGE. It was Trinity Sunday, full of buttercups and cuckoos and the sun. In Cambridge it was a Scarlet Day. In colleges, people struggling through a desert of Tripos papers or Mays rested their souls for a brief space in a green oasis, and took their lunch up the river. In Sunday schools, teachers were telling of the shamrock, that ill-considered and peculiarly inappropriate image conceived by a hard-pressed sai
Mystery & Suspense
Mystery at Geneva
1 Henry, looking disgusted, as well he might, picked his way down the dark and dirty corkscrew stairway of the dilapidated fifteenth century house where he had rooms during the fourth (or possibly it was the fifth) Assembly of the League of Nations. The stairway, smelling of fish and worse, opened out on to a narrow cobbled alley that ran between lofty mediæval houses down from the Rue du Temple to the Quai du Seujet